To hear all the Top Ten Songs scroll down past the Top Three Winners
The winner of the 2022 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is Jim Terry from Napa, CA. The song highlights a dark time in Florida’s history when the 1928 hurricane ravaged the communities surrounding Lake Okeechobee. Terry says, “As a songwriter, one thing that has become increasingly clear to me is that you never know when or how inspiration will arrive in your mental inbox. The inspiration for Mercy in the Storm came from an unusual source for me – from a piece of art in the form of a sculpture.”
Terry and a companion were strolling the grounds of the Storm King Art Center in Hudson Valley, New York. Stacked on a peninsula extending into a lake were two towers of tambourines, perhaps 30’ high and painted white. It was a sculpture by a young New York artist, Allison Janae Hamilton. The sculpture is entitled “The people cried mercy in the storm.” The title is a lyric from a song called “Florida Storm” by Judge Jackson which became popular in 1928 following the Okeechobee Hurricane. That storm killed thousands of people when the levies of Lake Okeechobee breached, and is reported to be the second deadliest hurricane in US history. Terry says, “So many people died that they couldn’t be buried. The few white people who died were properly buried.” Many black migrant workers were buried in mass graves. Terry added,
“As I was contemplating the stack of tambourines, I started thinking about Hurricane Katrina and the similarities between Okeechobee and what happened in New Orleans 77 years later when the levies of Lake Pontchartrain breached. There it was, the inescapable trifecta of systemic racism, climate change and those tambourines representing the role of folk music in building resilience in an oppressed culture. This was subject matter for a song. Allison reminded me in an email that it was a song that inspired the sculpture and now, full circle, the sculpture inspired a song.”
Terry is part of a family band. “It began with a tiny violin presented to my oldest son James, then 3 1⁄2 years old.” It wasn’t long before Jim, a guitarist himself, began playing along with his three sons, teaching them lyrics to popular songs. “Our favorite song was ‘Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road’ which we sang at our first official gig at the UC Alumni Camp Lair of the Bear,” says Terry.
Now, years later, the Terry Family Band is comprised of Jim and sons Clark and Graham (son James lives in Atlanta and sometimes joins the band). The music comes from the complex experiences of life, the country, and the world, while the roots of American folk music are prevalent in their playing style. Clark and Graham are multi-instrumentalists (violin, mandolin, bouzouki, guitar, vocals) while Jim writes the music and handles lead vocals while keeping the rhythm pulsing in the background with his acoustic guitar. Graham toured nationally as the bass player for Tornado Rider, a power rock group featuring Grammy nominated Rushad Eggleston on cello. Graham and Clark are also members of the Bay Area based Indie Folk group Middlesleep. Bass player Rob Wright is a versatile musician with jazz, classical, and deep bluegrass roots having shared the stage with the likes of David Grisman and Tony Rice.
The Terry Family has won 29 West Coast Songwriters (WCS) awards, including the 2018 Napa chapter Song of the Year “Fire in the Wind” and the overall winner of the WCS Song of the Year in the 2019 WCS Grand Finals competition at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley for “The Walls Stand On and On,” a stirring account of the story of Emmett Till. Terry Family’s debut album “Hometown Tragedies” is currently being released and promoted to North American folk radio by Art Menius.
The second place finisher in the 2022 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is Joshua Reilly from Clearwater, Florida. Reilly says he is a songwriter whose music flows seamlessly through and around the edges of the folk, country, and blues genres. Originally from the Midwest, Reilly makes his home in the Tampa Bay Area and continues to write music and showcase his raw delivery and undeniable connection to the spirit of his songs. His song is called, “Gibsonton” written from the perspective of someone who is a part of the carnival community in Gibsonton.
“Gibsonton is a song that was the product of several different points of inspiration,” says Reilly. “I chose the topic of “Florida” Songs as the theme of an ongoing songwriting group that I facilitate. My wife suggested that I write a song about Gibsonton, FL and its close connection to the circus. I loved the idea.” Before even writing the song, Reilly went on air with WMNF on The Florida Folk Show to promote the event where his group would perform their new “Florida” tunes. The other guest that day was John McEuen of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Reilly says, “At breakfast, following the program, I spoke with John about my desire to write a song about the circus-folk from Gibsonton. I told him I was having a tough time finding a way to approach the song. He thought for just a moment and said, “Joshua… if you write the song as if you were one of them, I don’t see how you’ll have any trouble at all.”
Here’s how Reilly describes his music, “Every now and then, a song, a voice, a lyric, splits your soul right in two and then proceeds to feed both sides. Raw yet refined, mournful yet optimistic, heartbroken yet inspiring… such is the dichotomy, the paradox, and the musical delivery of Joshua Reilly.” Reilly says he was born, raised, and marinated on the cornfield-lined country roads of central Illinois, and then cultivated, ripened, and baked on the beaches and concrete swamps of Florida.” He says he understands hard times, he knows redemption, and this unfiltered honesty pours out through his music. It’s a slice of life served clever and real.
Reilly has performed around the country, including a national tour in support of his 2017 album Mercy on the Strange. He has opened for acts such as Billy Joe Shaver, Robbie Fulks, and Slaid Cleaves. And while deepening his roots as a family man in Florida, Reilly has become one of the most respected and beloved musical acts in the Tampa Bay area.
Reilly’s style and message are all his own. His lyrics and music convey the poignant truth that life can be brutal or grand as we navigate the road ahead and face up to the road behind. As New York Times best selling author Tom Robbins wrote, “Vocally and instrumentally, Joshua Reilly has a delivery like the last train out of Real Town before the android invasion. Clear the tracks!”
Florida musician, philanthropist, singer/songwriter, and Florida Folk Community Member Joe Virga placed third for his song “Key West Time.” Virga moved to Florida from New York where he had been part of the Greenwich Village Music Scene. He was an accomplished guitarist and singer-songwriter who was known for his passion for helping fellow singer-songwriters attain performance opportunities in the Cup Of Joe Songwriter Stages at the regional Folk Alliance Festivals. His Facebook page is full of tributes attesting to his kindness through the years. Sadly Joe passed away in early December before learning of his placement in the song contest. The photo montage below and video featuring Joe’s song are thanks to Gail Carson. RIP Joe.
4th Place, tie, Cindy Bear, Jacksonville, FL, “Cow Ford”
4th Place, tie, Paul Smithson, Eustis, FL, “Freedom”
5th Place, Jane Fallon, Dunedin, FL, “Seminole Cowboy”
6th Place, tie, Cindy Bear, Jacksonville, FL, “Firehouse Brigade”
6th Place, tie, Andy Cohen, Darlington, SC, “Fine Florida Day”
6th Place, tie, Panayotis League, Tallahassee, FL “Golden Harvest”
7th Place, Bill & Eli Perras, DeLand, FL, “Happy Jack”
8th Place, David Ross, Naples, FL, “On Florida’s Old Shoreline”
9th Place, Craig Carlisle, Gainesville, FL, “Protect Mother Earth”
10th Place, tie, Kim Blackburn LeCouteur, Hawthorne, FL, “Sweetwater Preserve”
10th Place, tie, George Gray, Tallahasse, FL, “Boondocks in Miami”