I wouldn’t say it’s 100% so, but I’ll freely admit that up until now I’ve mostly been one of those navel-gazing songwriters. I just enjoy examining my own life and mining it for songwriting-worthy material.
Many terrific songwriters, of course, never — or no longer — write songs about themselves, but instead focus on telling other people’s stories.
I was recently “wowed” by one contemporary folk songwriter, Joe Crookston, an Ithaca-based performer who has been a Mountain Stage New Song Finalist, a Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist, yada yada yada.
I was also surprised to hear that he’s actually also a Rockefeller Foundation Songwriting Grant recipient — he applied for and received a grant in 2007 to travel around the Finger Lakes region of New York, interview people, collect stories and write songs. Neat, huh?
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