Congratulations to Sarah McCulloch from Davie, FL on winning the 2025 Will McLean Best new Florida Song Contest for her song, Everglades City 1985.
“I am so honored to have won the contest,” said McCulloch. “It is one of my proudest accomplishments.” She says the song is a tender and gritty tale of love and loss amidst the drug scandals in a small Florida town that time forgot.
“I grew up in the same county as Everglades City, so we were neighbors, just thousands of acres of Everglades between us. I don’t know exactly what it was like to be a Fisherman’s wife but I know what it was like to be a Sawmiller’s daughter watching my father slowly lose his business because of the national park service moving in and limiting land use.
The song is really about the human toll on the family that occurs when the ability to make a living on the land is lost. My father died suddenly in 1996 of a pulmonary embolism and everyone felt that the stress he was under shortened his life. When I sing the line “I’ll find me a job that won’t disappear, then I won’t have to disappear,” I’m singing about my father’s death. I hope the song makes people think too about what they would have done in that situation, “ … .. if a boat and a line and a fish were your way of life.” It’s raw and edgy and might make a few people uncomfortable but it’s real. I know it cause’ I lived it.”
McCulloch will be performing her winning song at the Will McLean Festival scheduled for March 7 – 9th, 2025 at the Florida Sand Music Ranch near Brooksville.
In 2023 McCulloch placed 3rd with the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest with “Sugartown” from her widely acclaimed album Sawmiller’s Daughter produced by Jim Bickerstaff (Bickerstaff won the contest in 2024).
She released her newest album, “Driving Me Home” in May of 2024. It is a collection of 12 original songs steeped in folk/country storytelling and is available everywhere music is streamed. In February, 2024 McCulloch was selected as one of the winners of the 2024 South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival’s Singer-Songwriter Competition.
2nd Place Finisher – Daniel Stepp- “Goodbye Senator”
The 2nd place finisher in the 2025 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is Daniel Stepp from Gainesville, FL with a song called, “Goodbye Senator.”
Stepp shared this inspiration for the song. “In 2012 a 3,500 year old cypress tree called The Senator, in Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida was burned down. The fire was caused by a woman, Sara Banes, lighting a small fire to assist her in smoking crystal meth beneath the tree and (it) quickly grew out of control and destroyed the tree, the 5th oldest tree in the world, and the oldest tree in the US east of the Mississippi River. This song is about the imposition we place on nature, wonder, and awe, through notions of progress and individualism.” Stepp says he’s honored to place in the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest and will be participating in the Will McLean Festival as a performer for the first time.
He has been writing songs for a new album with his band, The Wire Birds which will focus exclusively on stories and events in Florida. “As a Florida native I have always been interested in the narrative content in our state and how it’s filled with nature, awe and wonder, tragedy and mythologies of progress and utopianism. Some of the songs will include stories of the North Florida Barge Canal, tourist attractions, carnival shows, sugar cane, immaculate conceptions, insurance fraud, and religious movements.” Stepp’s Instagram link is thewirebirds_gnv.
3rd Place Finisher – Bob Patterson- “A Place In My Heart”
Bob Patterson from St. Augustine is the 3rd place finisher of the 2025 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest for, “A Place In My Heart.”
Patterson is no stranger to the contest. In 2019 he placed 1st with a song called “Silver Springs.” In 2005 he placed 3rd with a song called, “Lullabye of the Rivers.” It’s become somewhat of an anthem around the state. More importantly, it’s been used by educators to teach students about the natural history, geography, ecology and the state of health of Florida’s Rivers.
“The idea is if we don’t teach the kids about the environment, we can’t expect them to grow up wanting to protect it,” said Patterson. He hopes to obtain funding to create a DVD that could be used in schools to teach more educators how to utilize music in their science and history classes.
Patterson is the key organizer of a relatively new festival in the St. Augustine Area called “Lullabye of the Rivers.”He was one of the original founders of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival, and functioned as the event’s Artistic Director for 24 years. In 2011 the Stetson Kennedy Foundation awarded him the ‘Fellow Man and Mother Earth Award’ for his work in actively keeping folk culture alive in Florida.
Patterson was a 2011 first place winner in the North Florida Folk Network song writing contest in the category of Best Florida Song. In 2014 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Storytelling Association.
He has been a featured performer at the annual Florida Folk Festival at White Springs for more than 45 years and was recently inducted into the St Augustine Music Hall of Fame. In addition to critically acclaimed CDs, Patterson has authored two books, Forgotten Tales of Florida, and, Dorothy. Both books are loaded with Florida folk lore and history and have become very popular in the folk community and beyond.
Jim Bickerstaff says winning the Will McLean song contest is more than an honor, “It is recognition by my peers in a community of fine writers, performers, and humans … a validation of my creative efforts.” He says the late Margaret Longhill, who was instrumental in starting not only the Will McLean Festival, but also the Will McLean Foundation, is the main reason he ever wrote any songs about Florida, “She wore her vision on her sleeve, and she is the person that made room for a Georgia boy in the Florida Folk community. ”
“I first met Margaret Longhill in the early days of WillFest, before we called it that I think,” says Bickerstaff. The first two he attended were at two different venues near Dunnellon, and the following year, Longhill moved it to what was then called the Sertoma Youth Ranch and now called Florida Sand Ranch. He says, “Jim Billie invited me to play with him at the festival, and like everyone who ever came within range of Margaret’s magnetic field, I assumed an orbit and became a thread in the tapestry she was continuously weaving. Margaret had a sizable influence on everyone she met as well as on people who have no idea who she was. She was a purposeful woman and a good soul. I will never forget Sister Mary,” says Bickerstaff.
He says the primary message of his winning song, “Sister Mary,” is that we still have work to do preserving Florida and the rest of the planet for that matter. With Margaret gone, we are left to carry on her vision with art, music, and fighting for balance between development and conservation.” Bridge – What used to be is gone forever, time don’t go back to where it’s been. But as we step into tomorrow, are we going to let this happen once again? The secondary message says Bickerstaff, “A testimony to the fact that Margaret was here and did this thing.” Second VerseSister Mary beckons all the flowers in the field to gather for the Native sonThen they blow like dandelions, scattered to the wind, singing songs of old Florida. He adds, “I think it is important to understand that the planet will shrug us off like a rash once we destroy our ability to survive here. A few hundred thousand years after we become extinct, there will be little sign that we ever existed. Yet, our longevity is largely in our hands if we learn to coexist within the delicate balance that makes this planet inhabitable by humans.” 3rd VerseFloods and raging hurricanes have come and they have goneBut nothing any man can do can keep away the dawn.
Bickerstaff credits the musicians for “Sister Mary” as: Terry Feller – Drums, Bob Wray – Bass, Clayton Ivey – Wurlitzer Piano, Pat Severs – Acoustic Guitar, Johnny B – Dobro, Donny Carpenter – Fiddle, Jim Bickerstaff – Vocals & Acoustic Guitar.
As a four-year house engineer for legendary producer, Johnny Sandlin, Bickerstaff has worked at the top of the music business as an audio engineer for groups such as Widespread Panic, Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit & The Dixie Dregs on releases by Capricorn Records and Warner Brothers Music. Additional projects and artists include Scott Boyer, Tommy Talton, Chuck Leavell, Butch Trucks, Eddie Hinton, Loretta Lynn, Roger Hawkins, Randall Bramblett, T Lavitz, David Hood, John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Gladys Knight, Kelvin Holly, Spanky Alford, and others.
As an independent producer and engineer, Bickerstaff has worked with Jupiter Coyote, Chief Jim Billie, Sarah McCulloch, Jeannie Fitchen, Mindy Simmons, Raiford Starke, Joey Errigo, Clyde Walker, Sam Pacetti, Vassar Clements, John McEuen, Bela Fleck, Upsala, and other Indie artists.
As a writer and performer, Bickerstaff has released three albums of his music. He retired from Duke Energy in June, 2023 and has leaned into performing and production full-time again. In 2020 Bickerstaff placed third in the song contest with “Jim Billie, Chief of the Seminole.”
2nd Place Finisher, Amy Carol Webb- “Carry It On”
Amy Carol Webb says as a child she always knew that she wanted to be a musician and a minister when she grew up. Her father was a music teacher and a gospel preacher like his father before him. Her mother was a singer, Bible-school teacher and Mom to the kids of the neighborhood wherever they lived – and they lived a lot of places throughout Oklahoma, and Texas.
“Our house was like growing up in a practice hall as all us kids learned and experimented, what with the four of us singing and playing guitars, drums, trombone, tuba, piano, sax….it was a lovely kind of chaos. Music was breathing to me. Still is,” said Webb.
Upon graduating college with a BSE in Performing Arts, Webb says she set out for a career in marketing, music performance, production and education, in Los Angeles. As a performer and songwriter, she toured the US, Canada, Mexico and Japan, and played from the Kennedy Center to the stages of some of the most hallowed music festivals, universities and conferences.
As an educator Webb has taught music, creative writing, songwriting and life-skills development from the halls of the University of Miami to the cells of maximum security women’s prisons in Florida.
In the realm of Justice Music, Webb is a Charter Fellow of Noel Paul Stookey’s “Music2Life Foundation,” working for justice through music. In 2010 she graduated Summa Cum Laude from seminary at Andover Newton Theological School and was ordained the following year by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton, where she served for three years as a student and intern. Presently, she works as a Board Certified hospice Chaplain and bereavement group facilitator and is Consulting Minister to the River of Grass Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Davie, Florida.
She continues to provide concerts and workshops, and compose and record new music. In 2013 she released her 10th CD, Moments: Music – Mantra – Mystery, a celebration of devotional music from the world’s spiritual traditions as well as new Unitarian Universalist hymns and chants. Her justice anthem, STAND!, debuted at the 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly with a 150 voice choir and has been taken up by UU congregations and justice champions around the world – along with the call to action Tell Somebody! released at the UUA General Assembly 2012, and the invitation to reverence, On Holy Ground.
Webb says, “I am privileged to travel widely within the acoustic music community and the Unitarian Universalist movement preaching, singing, speaking, facilitating a variety of workshops focused to deepen, strengthen, amplify and edify – including fifteen years of service to SUUSI (Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute) with four years on the Board. In service to the larger faith community, I regularly speak, sing and teach at interfaith events, welcoming denominations, and also have served on the Board of the Ecumenical Institute at St. Thomas University in Miami.”
Webb is no stranger to the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest. In 2002 she placed first with her song Turtle Tears. That same year she also placed third for her song Rivers Roll On. Webb has been a consistent headliner at the Will McLean Music Festival and other music festivals across the state including the Florida Folk Festival, the Gamble Rogers Music Festival and the South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival.
Tie: 3rd Place Finisher, Lis Williamson- “Land of Flowers”
Elisabeth Williamson is a singer-songwriter residing in the Sandhills of her native Florida. She has been performing in Florida for many decades with her husband, Lon, in various groups over the years, The Driftwoods, The Gatorbone Band, Valla Turner Williamson and so many more. She and her husband Lon have recorded and produced more than 75 records of all original Florida folk music for the Florida folk singer-songwriter community which she describes as a deeply fulfilling endeavor. Her song, The Land of Flowers, was inspired by her lifetime of observance of the changing state of the state of Florida as well as a commentary that, “we must remain vigilant to preserve what’s left of her natural beauty.”
Williamson, who has been a player and lead singer in bluegrass bands, country bands, folk trios, madrigals and jazz ensembles has performed in thousands of venues, from festivals to honkytonks, wine bars, churches and barns as well as weddings, christenings, funerals, gourmet restaurants and rodeos around the country. She is active with the Gamble Rogers Music Festival Board. You can catch her performing most often at a variety of venues in the St. Augustine area.
Tie- 3rd Place finisher, Kurt Fortmeyer- “Pelicans“
Kurt Fortmeyer describes himself as a neo-traditional hobo, bluesman, honkytonking folksinger and songwriter. He says he was born in a barn, and raised in a stable environment, or so he might tell an unwitting listener in one of his sillier moments. He lived in North Carolina, California, Hawaii, and Maryland, before starting the first grade in Texas. A long-time lover of music, Fortmeyer joined his first band at the age of thirteen, and started writing songs almost right away. By the age of 19, he was turning into more of a solo singer/songwriter, with the occasional stints in blues, country, and rock bands.
In the 1970s, he hitchhiked coast-to-coast with a guitar and a burlap sack full of clothes. In the 1980s, he met his wife, and mostly came in off the road. With the help of friends, he built the house where his kids grew up in eastern North Carolina. In the 1990s, he and his wife opened a coffeehouse that became a haven for songwriters, and in the early part of this century, they moved to the Nashville area, where they now live in a holler in the hills northwest of town.
Fortmeyer has performed at the world-famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville for almost 20 years. He has been a featured performer at the North Carolina Museum of History, and The Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. His recordings have been played on radio stations around the world, and are available on most streaming platforms.
He describes his inspiration for writing his song Pelicans, “I was writing a “Coastal Country” kind of song with a producer friend of mine and his artist, when I came up with a line about a pelican. My friend went off on me. “Nobody’s going to sing a song with the word ‘pelican’ in it. It’s a clunky word, and an ugly bird. A seagull is the iconic ocean bird. It has to be a seagull.” I told him “You can find seagulls at the landfill, but if you see pelicans, you know you’re at the coast.” He insisted on a seagull, and since it was for his artist, and they bought my lunch, I relented. On the way home, I started thinking about about it, and his comment stuck in my craw. When I got home, I started working on Pelicans.
4th Through 10th Place Finishers:
4th place- Chad Spikes- “Days Long Gone“
5th place- Chad Spikes- “Ghost of the Suwannee”
Tie 6th place- Cindy Bear and Susan Grandy- “Suwannee River in White Springs”
Tie 6th place- Chad Spikes- “Apalachee Sky”
7th place- David Beede- “The Melrose Song”
8th place- Dale & Lisa Dollar- “Ochlockonee”
9th place- Scott Campbell- “Bloody Buckets Bridge”
