PA Heritage Songwriting Contest rolls into 15th year; entries accepted until May 15

CROSS FORK -- The Pennsylvania Heritage Songwriting Contest (PHSC) is celebrating its 15th year with the 2023 winners to perform at the Smoked Country Jam Bluegrass Festival on June 17 at the Quiet Oaks Campground, Cross Fork. The contest draws inspired works from amateur songwriters who "celebrate Pennsylvania, its people, places and history in song."

Popular themes among songwriters have included rivers; the Susquehanna and Monongahela, Hurricane Agnes, the Johnstown Flood, Centralia, the Civil War, railroads, coal mining, Marcellus Shale development, legends, lore and the places songwriters' love or call home.

In its first year, top honors were awarded to Jim Colbert of Bellefonte, Pa. for his work "The Fire's Still Burning" -- one of two entries that year about Centralia.

There have been several more Centralia themed entries since, including the 2021 winning entry "Letters from Centralia" submitted by Leo DiSanto, of Lancaster, Pa. In 2011 Tom Oswald of Mansfield, Pa. took top honors with his topical work "Tioga," a lament for land under siege by natural gas well development.

In 2012 top honors were taken by Tom Smith of Dedham, Mass., a Pa. expatriate from the Scranton area for his entry "Swallowed by the Hole" recounting the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster near Pittston, Pa. when 12 miners were lost as the Susquehanna River collapsed into the mine.

In 2013, both first and second place entries were songs relating to railroads. Top honors that year went to Pat Kenneally, of Pepperell, Mass. for "Duffy's Cut" recounting the disappearance of 57 Irish immigrant railroad workers in 1832 working for Phillip Duffy, a contractor for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad which would later become the Pennsylvania Railroad. This tragic event was the theme of a 2008 entry also titled "Duffy's Cut." "Red Arrow Train" co-written by Chuck Cox, of Altoona, Pa., and Jason Teel, of Morgantown, W.Va., which memorializes a passenger train wreck in 1947 took second place in 2013.

Tom Oswald, of Mansfield, Pa., is the first two-time winner taking first place in 2011 with "Tioga" and third in 2015 with "The Good Life of Scott Nearing." Since then, the songwriting team of Mike Blottenberger and Robert Shuey, of Hanover, Pa., became two-time winners in 2018 and 2019. Then, in 2022 both first and second place were held by the songwriting team of Perry Artese and Tom Dimeo, of Garnet Valley, Pa.

In addition to celebrating Pennsylvania in song, this nonprofit event, has the near-term, goal of funding the Craig A. "Bubba" Bowman Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Craig was a Central Pennsylvania musician killed in a car crash in January 2006. One of Craig's last performances was at the Smoked Country Jam Bluegrass Festival in 2005 with his band "The Last Complete Show." Bubba also played bass for the "New Broad River Band" from Asheville, N.C. at the festival that year.

A 15 track CD "Pennsylvania Heritage Songwriters Volume 1" is currently in production which will include the top three finishers from the first five years of the contest with Volume 2 to follow. The CDs are expected to drop by the June 15 -- festival opening day -- and will be available on most music streaming sites. The PHSC development vision also includes a statewide Pennsylvania Heritage Songwriters tour to foster appreciation and study of Pennsylvania history thorough school and community performances, and establishment of a publicly accessible archive of all song entries.

Funding to achieve these goals is continuously being sought. Individuals, institutions or organizations interested in supporting this effort can contact PHSC by email at music@ecosa.net.

Entries for this year and every year are accepted through May 15. A three-judge panel comprised of acclaimed Pennsylvania singer/songwriters selects winners in a triple blind process heavily weighted toward the strength of tie to Pa. Contest information, rules and the entry form, songwriters can be found at: http://www.smokedcountryjam.com/docs/PHSC.pdf. Everyone is invited to visit Pennsylvania Heritage Songwriters on Facebook.