Bob Patterson from St. Augustine is the 2019 winner of the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest for, “Silver Springs.” The song has a musical message about the current plight of not only one of the largest artesian springs in the world, but one of the most beautiful springs in Florida located in Marion County. Patterson recalls the day he first saw the spring.
It was in the early 70s when Gamble Rogers showed up at his house in St. Augustine in his old Mustang pulling a boat. Will McLean was with him. The three headed to Gore’s Landing north of Ocala, launched the boat into the Ocklawaha River and headed down to the Silver River and into the headspring.
At the time said Patterson, “It was producing 99.8% pure artesian spring water. Now it’s polluted and it’s getting worse and worse. So there was a sense of urgency about writing that song.”
Patterson didn’t start out writing environmental songs. He recalls a night around 1969 when Will McLean stayed at his house. During a late night music session Patterson sang one of his songs for Will.
“They were kind of those “Baby, Oh Baby” kind of songs,” recalled Patterson. “Will, who was always so ingratiating, would say, “Aww, that’s just wonderful. That’s beautiful Bob. Why don’t you write songs like that about Florida.”
McLean would be proud of Patterson’s songs today. In 2005 he placed in the top three of the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest 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, along with the second and third place finishers of the song contest will be featured at the 2019 Will McLean Festival March 8th thru the 10th at the Sertoma Youth Ranch near Brooksville. This year he also tied for fourth place with his song, “Me and Margaret,” a song referring to the longtime Matriarch of the Florida folk scene, the late Margaret Longhill. Longhill died in 2018, just a few days before the 29th Will McLean Festival, the festival she started thirty years ago.
As one of the original founders of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival, Patterson has 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.
Paul Smithson, is the 2nd place finisher in the 2019 contest for his song, “Ninety-One Days” about the late former Governor Lawton Chiles and the way he was known for walking across the state of Florida as he campaigned for office.
Smithson spent his early years in New York. He relocated in his early teens and considers Florida his home. He has lived most of his life (aside from a 10 year hiatus in California) in Lake County, Florida. Smithson, who lives in Eustis, Florida says his first memories of the Sunshine State were the citrus groves that used to dominate the landscape. He watched these groves freeze out in the 80s, to be replaced by strip malls and subdivisions.
At 56, Smithson says he has witnessed the state he fell in love with evolve into something other than what it was, but he also knows that Florida is persistent. There remains the swamps, prairies, and pined forests of Ocala, the Canaveral Seashore, and the numerous lakes of central Florida, to name only a few of his favorite haunts.
He has taught literature and composition since 1998, beginning at the University of Central Florida, sojourning through California, and ending up back in central Florida. He currently teaches AP Literature and AP U.S. History at his Alma Mater: Eustis High School (class of 1980).
Smithson says his musical/songwriting influences include Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Steve Earle. His interest in Florida history began with Gilbert King’s The Devil in the Grove, a book documenting the story of political corruption and racial injustice in 1940s-1950s Lake County. Smithson says he was so moved and inspired by the book that he composed, recorded, and released a CD by the same title. The CD contains songs that provide both a narrative and a variety of points of view of the major and minor players.
Smithson’s song, “The Last Train Out of Fernandina,” tied for fourth place in this year’s contest. He currently performs with John French as Smithson & French. This duo focuses on songwriting, harmonizing, and generally simply having a good time doing it.
Razz Taylor is a singer-songwriter and performing independent recording artist living in Arcadia in south Florida. He was raised along the shores of Lake Okeechobee in South Florida and began singing for friends and family when he was just six years old.
Taylor’s 3rd place song, “Arcadia Cowboy” is about living in a small town in Florida and not wanting to be tied down.
His song, “Okeechobee,” which placed sixth in this year’s contest, is an autobiography about growing up hunting and fishing on the big water of Lake Okeechobee and the yearning of wanting to return to those childhood days.
Taylor says he is deeply influenced by traditional country music with a twist of the Oklahoma and Texas sound of red dirt country music. You can find his music on cdbaby, iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and You Tube. You can find him on Facebook at RazzTaylor and the Mystic River band.