Woodyfest 2019: Songwriting Contest Winners

Anna Larson, Dan Weber Take 2^nd & 1^st Place

Satur­day night at Woodyfest 2019 kicked off, as in past [Sidenote: This is the sev­en­teenth post in our cov­er­age of the twenty-sec­ond annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. We’ll be alter­nat­ing our report­ing with essays and photo gal­leries from the sev­en­teenth fes­ti­val in 2014, so check in often for a mix of old and new Woodyfest good­ness.] years, with a show­case for the Woody Guthrie Songwriting Contest winners.

The show­case lead with sec­ond-place win­ner [Sidenote: The third-place show­case took place the pre­vi­ous evening. Ed Dupas and Chet O’Keefe tied for their songs “Train” and “In Case You Forgot,” respec­tively.] Anna Larson per­form­ing her win­ning song “Acting Alone” accom­pa­nied by gui­tarist Jon-Michael Rogers.

in 2019. While in iso­la­tion dur­ing the 2020 pan­demic, Larson recorded a seven-song EP and an accom­pa­ny­ing short film, Cocoon, releas­ing both pieces 29 January, 2021.

Following Larson, first-place win­ner Dan Weber per­formed his win­ning song “Ever Since Columbine.” Weber wrote the song after watch­ing the news of another in a seem­ingly end­less string of mass shoot­ings, this one tak­ing place in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which hap­pened to be where his 1968 Gibson gui­tar was manufactured.

No stranger to Woodyfest, Weber placed third in the 2013 song­writ­ing con­test for his song “What I’m Lookin’ For,” as well as gar­ner­ing hon­or­able men­tion for audi­ence-favorite “Oh Woody.” The fol­low­ing year, he placed sec­ond for “Hank and Jesus.”

Weber can be counted on to show up at the fes­ti­val most years, whether he is per­form­ing or not. He recently moved from Oregon to Richardson, Texas, just in time to expe­ri­ence the Great 2020 Blizzard and the sub­se­quent fail­ure of the Texas power grid. Here’s hop­ing he can stand the heat, now that summer’s here.

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