Blues & Roots Radio announced on Saturday, January 30th at Noon ET, the winners of their 3rd Annual International Song Contest.
This year the event was sponsored by Willow Sound Records, Global Learning Solutions, Cooper Mediation and The Sound Cafe Magazine, giving the multi award winning online platform the opportunity, for the first time, to award cash prizes along with their annual award. Previous winners include Thornetta Davis ( USA ), and Lynne Hanson ( Canada ).
This year saw a record number of entries from all around the world, the quality of songwriting was very impressive and included many genres and styles of music, from Americana, Contemporary Folk, Celtic Music, Blues, Country and more with entrants vying for the coveted award. Blues & Roots Radio gathered together ten jurors, all well respected radio hosts from the station, a number of whom sit on regional and national music awards in their respective countries. The jurors were based in Canada, USA, Scotland, England, Wales and Italy.
Anne Connor, President of Blues & Roots Radio, said " We would like to thank the jurors for the hours of listening that has gone into this year's contest, it was not an easy task with so many fabulous entries, they were chosen because of their dedication and love of the independent artists that they promote on their shows each week, they are all extremely knowledgable and respected members of the music communities in the countries in which they live and further afield. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the sponsors of this years contest, in a year that has been so challenging for artists around the world, it meant we could offer cash prizes for the first time, the winners, I'm sure, will appreciate the prize money at this very difficult time."
The Kate Lush Band was named category winner in the Duo/Trio/Band category with their song 'Jackson', The Australian Blues Chain Award winner is in creative overdrive, firing out consecutive #1 Albums In Australia & the U.S. as well as hitting the European charts. At home she has been rocking festival stages at Blues On Broadbeach, Thredbo Blues Festival, Girrakool, Mitchell Creek, Aust. Music Week as well as Blues Across the Bay & many more. She hit the main Blues U.S. RMR chart at #11 alongside Norah Jones, Mr Sipp, Tedeschi Trucks, Samantha Fish, Taj Mahal, the Rolling Stones & Robert Cray among other greats.
Australia seems to be pumping out some extraordinary talent these days, Jenny Biddle won the Female category for her song 'Hero In Me (Hero In You Sequel)'.
At first glance, you wouldn’t assume her 5-foot-tall stature will burst into a fiery powerhouse of well-seasoned guitar expeditions. Intertwining savoury melodies with speculative lyrics, Jenny Biddle, wraps herself around her guitar, and like a marriage between body and instrument, she commands the guitar to talk “with uncommon skill and absolute self-assurance”. Her audience is compelled to join her on a voyage of passion and story in song.
Currently based in Scotland, the Aussie indie blues & roots songsmith has handmade several acoustic guitars, plays a wicked blues harp, is a proficient pianist, can bust out bubbling banjo ballad if bullied, and if that isn’t annoying enough, she dabbles in graphic design for her own albums and merch, releasing music and touring the world as an entirely independent musician.
The final category winner was multi award winning Colin Clyne, now based back in Scotland after spending many years in San Diego, California, Colin won the Male category and also was named overall winner for his song 'Where The Ships Go To Die'
Scottish rain and whiskey soaked songs dried off in the Californian sunshine. Colin Clyne is an award winning Scottish singer/songwriter (Country, Folk Rock, and Americana). Having spent 10 years in California, Clyne is now back in Scotland blazing a trail in the UK music scene. He left San Diego as a 2 time winner of ‘The Best Acoustic Act’ at the prestigious San Diego Music Awards. In the US, NBC featured Colin in a top 12 list of best singer songwriters associated with San Diego in amongst, Tom Waits, Jewel, and the late Jim Croce.
In addition to his previous album, "Doricana", "The Never Ending Pageant" was produced by Grammy Award Winning Engineer, Alan Sanderson, (The Stones, Elton John, Ryan Adams, Burt Bacharach). 'Pageant' reached #6 on the iTunes Country album charts and his song "Top of the Mountain' was a Finalist in the UK Songwriting contest.
The full list of category finalists and winners can be found on the Blues & Roots Radio website page, International Song Contest 2020, there is an amazing array of talent on each category list, we'd encourage you to visit the websites of each artist and seek their music out.
The final word comes from Anne Connor," This contest started as a modest event three years ago, it has blossomed into an international contest beyond what we could have imagined, every single person who entered a song has to be commended and congratulated for doing so, not just this year, but over the last three years, everyone is a winner. To the people who support this, the artists, jurors, sponsors, listeners and readers we'd like to say thank you, we know that the artists really are grateful and appreciate your time spent listening to their creations".
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The Three winning song entries are below
Colin Clyne
Jenny Biddle
Kate Lush Band
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