December 7, 2023 – Songs like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind,” and Utah Phillips & Paul Kamm’s “Ship Gonna Sail” are earworm songs with important messages.
That’s the reason the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project (SR/NPTGP) is hosting a singer-songwriter contest for new, original songs with supportive messages about homelessness and living in illegal, “desperation housing” (RVs and trailers, yurts, shipping containers, tiny homes, whatever is habitable).
Thanks to funding from the Upstate California Creative Corps, it is free to enter the 2023 SR/NPTGP Singer-Songwriter Contest.
The songs can be funny, sad, romantic, defiant, sentimental, and in any genre from blues to rock, country to hip hop to anything that moves hearts and minds.
The contest is open to all singer-songwriters from newbies to pros in the “Upstate” region (see rules below) of Northern California.
Entries must be original and not previously performed or recorded publicly.
Winners’ songs will be professionally recorded on an official SR/NPTGP CD by Paul Emery Music of Nevada City. Their songs will also receive radio airplay on KVMR and other community radio stations.
Performance-ready contest winners may be selected to perform in the opening set of the SR/NPTGP Nevada City Live concert with singer-songwriters Bob Woods and Juliet Gobert at the Nevada Theatre early next year.
Other prizes may be awarded, but this is mostly an opportunity for socially conscious singer-songwriters to showcase their talent as part of an effort to improve the lives of homeless people and the folks who live in fear of forced relocation.
The Rules
Contest entries will be judged on the “catchiness” (singalong earworm factor) of the music, the power of the message in the lyrics, and the performance art of the singer(s).
Up to two entries per person or team will be accepted. A team would be like Paul McCartney and John Lennon (both co-wrote, both sang) or Gerry Goffin and Carole King (he co-wrote, she co-wrote and sang).
To enter, you must:
- Be a resident of one of the 19 counties within the Upstate California Creative Corps region – (see map) https://www.upstatecreativecorps.org/
- Send a link to a downloadable video of you performing your song. Must be viewable on PC, Apple and Android without restriction or password. Cell phone videos are acceptable. Filename should be name of song and name of singer-songwriter; e.g., Homeless Blues-Jane Doe.mp4.
- Submit written lyrics with chords
- 50 to 100-word name and bio of the performer or team (150 words for team)
- Email, phone and ZIP Code
Send entries with the subject line SS CONTEST to info@sierra-roots.org. The deadline is midnight, Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024.
For contest questions and more information about homeless/housing issues (and song ideas), contact: tomdurkin@sierra-roots.org.
Workshop revisited
Participants in the SR/NPTGP singer-songwriter workshop Nov. 19 at the Wild Eye Pub in Grass Valley received a head start on the contest. Over the course of three hours, Sierra Roots Project musical directors Juliet Gobert and Bob Woods, and guest singer-songwriter Steve Noonan, presented an interactive, professional clinic on songwriting.
Both accomplished, working musicians with their own bands Woods and Gobert have recorded more than a dozen albums, including “Tea & Whiskey,” their first album as a duo.
Noonan was a mentor to Jackson Browne.
After more than two decades working for Nevada County as a sheriff’s dispatcher and later as a child protective services worker, Gobert launched her second career as the leader and songwriter for her all-woman band the Heifer Belles.
Woods is a triple threat: storied songwriter, spirited singer and lead instrumentalist on both electric and acoustic guitar, pedal steel guitar and saxophone. Although he’s played in many bands over the years, he is best known in recent years as the rock’n’roll leader of the Bob Woods Trio featuring Juliet Gobert.
During the workshop, Gobert talked of her rigorous discipline in writing every day. She urged clinic attendees keep writing and rewriting songs, moving verses around, taking out all the good stuff and just keeping the great stuff.
Both Woods and Gobert advised keeping instruments and notebooks always available. Even when he was working as a computer programmer for the state, Woods said he always kept his songwriting notebook open on his desk.
And as a bona fide steam locomotive engineer, he said the rhythm of the rails informs much of his music.
Gobert debuted her heartbreaking, new song “It’s a Silent Night” about a homeless woman and her dog hiding in their car in a parking lot at night (“no light, no love, no food, no peace”). Gobert also wrote the SR/NPTGP theme song “No Place To Go.”
Woods provided the technical highlight of the workshop when he demonstrated modulation (changing key) in his song “Last Train Through Moraga.” When one of the modulation questions got too complex, both Woods and Gobert laughed and said in unison, “Google it.”
After the teaching clinic, Woods, Gobert and Noonan worked individually with the students. They shared songwriting tips and encouraged lyrics about homelessness and alternative housing.
Feedback forms collected for the Nevada County Arts Council gave the three music veterans rave reviews. There were requests for more workshops.
Because of the positive experience and as part of its grant obligations, the SR/NPTG Project is considering holding another workshop in another county. Or maybe it could be a live workshop over Zoom.
Anyone interested in attending or hosting a workshop, please write tomdurkin@sierra-roots.org or call Tom Durkin at 530-559-3199 and leave a message.
Tom Durkin is creative director of the Sierra Roots/No Place to Go Project, which is funded by a grant from the Upstate California Creative Corps, a program of the California Arts Council. He may be contacted at tomdurkin@sierra-roots.org or www.project.sierra-roots.org.