Tag Archives: Mem Semmes

Artist Features

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These Diamonds

scan0005The late Will McLean spent his life writing songs to save Florida through music.  Now the foundation named after the father of Florida folk is marketing an environmental CD trying to continue McLean’s lifelong mission.  The acoustic CD features musicians from across the Sunshine State singing about a wide variety of environmental stories and issues.  As Donna Green-Townsend reports even the CD title, These Diamonds carries a story behind it.

Florida musicians included on the CD are:

The Eagles Fly – Mindy Simmons

Lullaby of the Rivers – Bob Patterson

Rose and the Gold – Mem Semmes

Cracker CowmanFrank Thomas

Florida Pines – Paul Garfinkel

Paw Prints in the Sand – Ken Skeens

These Diamonds – Grant Livingston

Turtle Tears – Amy Carol Webb

Rand McNally Map of Florida – Jim Bickerstaff

Plumes – Steve Blackwell

Apalachicola Doin’ Time – Dale Crider

Song For Our Children – Mary Ann Dinella

 

Mem Semmes

Folk friends 002
Mem Semmes and her son Jon

The late Mem Semmes from Dunnellon loved music. Not only did she write hundreds of songs, but she also helped provide a long time venue for Florida’s singer songwriters through the monthly concert series, The Sunday Sampler. Just a few years before she died her son Jon Semmes helped Mem produce her first CD.  Mem talked about songwriting with Donna Green-Townsend in this one hour special aired on WUFT in December of 2007 on Across The Prairie.

 

 

Mem Semmes on These Diamonds CD Project

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The late Will McLean spent his life writing songs to save Florida through music.  Now the foundation named after the father of Florida folk is marketing an environmental CD trying to continue McLean’s lifelong mission.  The acoustic CD features musicians from across the Sunshine State singing about a wide variety of environmental stories and issues.  As Donna Green-Townsend reports even the CD title, These Diamonds carries a story behind it.

Florida musicians included on the CD are:

The Eagles Fly – Mindy Simmons

Lullaby of the Rivers – Bob Patterson

Rose and the Gold – Mem Semmes

Cracker CowmanFrank Thomas

Florida Pines – Paul Garfinkel

Paw Prints in the Sand – Ken Skeens

These Diamonds – Grant Livingston

Turtle Tears – Amy Carol Webb

Rand McNally Map of Florida – Jim Bickerstaff

Plumes – Steve Blackwell

Apalachicola Doin’ Time – Dale Crider

Song For Our Children – Mary Ann Dinella

 

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Early band photo of Mem Semmes

Donna, Mem Semmes and Harriett Meyer at Apalachicola Doin' Time Celebration in 2000
Donna, Mem Semmes and Harriett Meyer at Apalachicola Doin’ Time Celebration in 2000

1995 Will McLean Song Contest Winner and 2nd and 3rd place finishers

Here is the winner, 2nd and 3rd place finishers of the 1995 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest

Stan Geberer
1st place winner Stan Geberer

Winner Stan Geberer “One More Florida Song”

(Audio unavailable but see lyrics below)

ONE MORE FLORIDA SONG By Stan Geberer

Orange blossoms in the spring, Made many singers sing
Everglades in the fall, Summer rains made the sawgrass tall

Who’s gonna sing about the Florida Sand, When all those singers no longer can

Who’s gonna write one more Florida Song, One where everybody wants to sing along…oh…

And if those singers were still here, Maybe they’d sing about the small key deer
Or sing about Florida’s whispy sky, In the winter with the clouds so high

Who’s gonna write one more Florida song, Who’s gonna write one more Florida song

Or maybe they’d sing time is so short, How to save God’s earth you got to go to court
And how it seems we can hardly win, But their songs made us try again and again

Who’s gonna write one more Florida song, One where everybody wants to sing along

Now the sky is a wintery blue, Over the pines and the cypress too
And a new song in the air so still, Sing it for ‘em if you will

Lets sing about the Florida sand, Lets sing about it while we can
Lets sing one more Florida song, Now everybody sing along

Lets sing one more Florida song, One more Florida song

BradBoone
Brad Boone

2nd place Brad Boone “State of Harmony”

Jon and his mom Mem
Jon and Mem Semmes

3rd place Mem Semmes “My Dunnellon” (performed here by her son Jon Semmes)

Back to the list of winners by year
or
Click here to go to the Will McLean Festival website