Richard Leigh
Richard Leigh has had hits spanning 4 decades and 9 #1 records. He kicked off the 21st century with a top ten hit, “Cold Day In July”, recorded by the Dixie Chicks. In September of 2009, his good friend, Billy Dean, recorded an entire album of Leigh’s compositions called Billy Dean Sings Richard Leigh. On November 1, 2015 SESAC presented Leigh with its Songwriter Legacy Award, “for extraordinary artistic achievement with words and music”. Crystal Gayle and Reba McEntire were on hand to help present Leigh with this prestigious award.
To date, Leigh has made fourteen trips to the Top Ten and has written or co-written nine #1 singles: the hauntingly beautiful “Somewhere In My Broken Heart” (written with Billy Dean), voted 1991 Song Of The Year by the Nashville Songwriter’s Association (NSAI), and also by the Academy Of Country Music (ACM); “Only Here For A Little While”, (written with Wayland Holyfield); “The Greatest Man I Never Knew” (written with Layng Martine, Jr.), nominated at the 1993 Grammy Awards for Best Country Song); “Come From The Heart” (written with Susanna Clark and recorded by Kathy Mattea); Don Williams’ “Thats The Thing About Love” (written with Gary Nicholson); Steve Wariner’s “Life’s Highway” (written with Roger Murrah); Mickey Giley’s “Put Your Dreams Away” (written with Wayland Holyfield), and the aforementioned “I’ll Get Over You” and “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”, both written solely by Leigh and recorded by Crystal Gayle.
John Carlson
John William Carlson is an award-winning singer/songwriter from Holly Springs, North Carolina. Musically, John roams a lot of ranges from Americana, Folk, Country and Gospel to gritty slide blues. In December 2013, John was named the winner in the American Songwriter Magazine and Gibson USA lyric competition and was featured in the February 2014 ‘Legends’ issue of American Songwriter Magazine. John has worked with Grammy winning songwriter Phil Madeira at his Mercyland Songwriting Workshops.
John’s friend Pierce Pettis, who wrote Garth Brooks’ hit ‘You Move Me’, says of Carlson’s writing, ‘John Carlson writes songs with warmth and intelligence…a rare combination these days.’