The Currys have been staking their claim within the Americana music scene for years, cutting their teeth in the oyster bars and listening rooms of the Florida Panhandle. Brothers Tommy and Jimmy Curry and cousin Galen Curry have been praised for their “tight-as-a-rubber-band” harmonies and “infectious” songwriting.
Their winning song in the 2020 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest, “Gulf Coast Home,” is a song about lost love, but it’s also a love song for home. The country-tinged nostalgia of the lyrics pays homage to the Currys’ roots in the Florida Panhandle. In the wake of Hurricane Michael, the band offered a free advance download of the song in exchange for donations to disaster relief efforts. To date, the campaign has raised nearly $8000.
The Currys have three full-length albums to date: their studio debut “Follow” (2014) and “West of Here” (2016). Their new release, “This Side of the Glass,” once again features their tight vocal harmonies, but the album has ambitions, at times straying beyond the borders of the folk/singer-songwriter tradition. The trio shares songwriting duties, each in turn offering his take on the time-worn themes of life and love. For more on The Currys visit their website: https://thecurrysmusic.com/
(Note: Scroll down below the third place finisher and click on the video to see live performances by the 2nd and fourth place finishers as well as the presentation giving recognition to the first two scholarship winners announced by the Will McLean Foundation. Thanks to Gail Carson for the production.)
The second place finisher is John Butler from Matlacha in South Florida with a song called, “Bridge to Sanibel.” Butler says the song is a tribute to one of the most beautiful, laid-back spots in Florida, Sanibel Island: the beaches, the Ding Darling preserve, the hospitality culture and the “no hurry” atmosphere.
Butler is no newcomer to the Will McLean Festival. This is the third year the he has placed in the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest. In 2018 he placed second for his song, “Miami Bound.” In 2015 he placed second for, “Oh Miami.”
Most of Butler’s song writing is inspired by what he describes as serendipity, “…a random phrase uttered by a stranger, a simple gesture evincing a strong emotion, seeing a symbol that conveys a vivid meaning, and sometimes juxtaposing in my head elements of the rational and the absurd into a whole that makes me laugh out loud. Sometimes the song just blasts out of me, and sometimes the initial impulse has to marinate for years before I begin to develop it into a song.” Butler adds he loves story songs, ” They’re like a three-act play compressed into just a few minutes. But I also love songs that are more evocative than informative, that create an atmosphere for contemplation.”
Butler is well known in South Florida from playing in a number of bands through the years. For more than two decades he composed music for industrial marketing films.
His songwriting achievements also include being selected as a winner in the 2018 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition for Emerging Songwriters at the Kerville Folk Festival, winning first place in the 2011 North Florida Folk Festival Americana song writing contest, a first place in the 2014 “Hope by Song” song writing competition in southwest Florida, and a win (as one of three co-equal winners) in the 2015 South Florida Folk Festival song writer competition. One of Butler’s songs was included in the soundtrack of the 2013 feature film, “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3-D.”
The third place finisher in the 2020 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is Jim Bickerstaff from Southport, NC with his song, “Jim Billie, Chief of the Seminole.” Bickerstaff co-wrote the song with Pete Gallagher from St. Petersburg, FL. (Gallagher hosts the Saturday morning “Florida Folk Show” on 88.5 FM, WMNF, a community radio station in Tampa.) Jim Bickerstaff also tied for 7th with a song called, “Sister Mary.”
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, T Lavitz, David Hood, John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Gladys Knight, Kelvin Holly, Spanky Alford, and many others.
As an independent producer and engineer, Bickerstaff has worked with Jupiter Coyote, Jeannie Fitchen, Mindy Simmons, Raiford Starke, Joey Errigo, Clyde Walker, Sam Pacetti, Vassar Clements. John McEuen, Bela Fleck, Upsala, and hundreds of other Indie artists.
“Most of my music career has been behind the console, but I have always been a writer,” says Bickerstaff. “The opportunity to play with so many great musicians while working at Johnny Sandlin’s studio and traveling in a mobile studio created a chance to cut some of my songs.”
Bickerstaff’s latest CD entitled, “Florida” began as a concept project in early 2018 when he decided to return to writing and recording after a long hiatus.
“I wanted to capture the essence of a Florida I have come to love from the people and places you don’t see on the tourist maps,” says Bickerstaff. “This is a Florida I have seen through the eyes of the Seminole people, Margaret Longhill, Frank Thomas, Don Grooms, and J.U. Lee, absorbed through countless nights recording and picking music around campfires. It is a Florida you feel while sitting on the bank of the Withlacoochee, paddling through the mangroves in the Keys, or camping in the middle of the Everglades.”
Here is a video produced from the live performances at the Will McLean Festival on March 13th of not only the first two scholarship winners from the Will McLean Foundation, but also the winner and two of the finishers of the 2020 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest produced by Gail Carson.