Andy Baker, Emily Rose and Mike Ward in the Round!
Michigan singer/songwriter Andy Baker has spent a lifetime peering through microscopes. As a veterinarian, it’s a necessary skill…searching for small clues in order to grasp the bigger picture. Pretty handy tool for a songwriter too. In fact, Andy has spent a great deal of his life with his own lens turned inward…and outward…resulting in a pondering writing style that moves with a purposeful stride, a playful heart, and a hopeful eye to the horizon.
Three decades of crafting songs have resulted in four studio albums, with nods to his many influences including Counting Crows, James Taylor, Ryan Adams, and the Indigo Girls. His 2010 release “Down” garnered multiple awards from the Great Lakes Songwriting Competition, and songs from his 2017 album “One Fine Day” landed him a coveted finalist spot at the Kerrville Newfolk Songwriting Competition.
On the heals of his 2020 release “North Country Sky”, Andy came back to win the Kerrville Newfolk Songwriting Competition, and was also featured as an Emerging Artist at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York. The album spent a number of weeks on the national Folk DJ Chart, and the opening song “Second Wind” hit #18 in July. Jon Stein of Hootenanny Cafe writes “From the first note of the first song to the last note of the last song, North Country Sky is nothing less than brilliant. His tunes will compel the listener to keep listening…and then after the last note of the last song, wanting more! I can’t wait for Andy Baker’s next album.”
Emily Rose is an award winning Detroit based singer/songwriter and published poet with with multiple albums and eps spanning a career which began in 2006. Her most recent release ‘Shoebox Island’ is a waltz with nostalgia; a dive into into the ever changing relationship we have with our past. She has shared the stage with Amos Lee and The War and Treaty. PlayStation Four’s Detroit: Become Human features two of her songs and she has music in the feature film, Welcome to Happiness. She is currently working on a forthcoming concept album about animals, set to emerge in 2023.
Lyrically-centric, vocally-charged folk songs that occasionally take on political issues. Those are what singer-songwriter Mike Ward loves to create. Living in Detroit, Mike grew up listening to Irish music and singing in choirs. A few of his influences are Jason Isbell, Nanci Griffith, Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and John Prine. His writing echoes along empty sidewalks, on our nation’s backroads, in family portraits, and in the thin lines between joy and tragedy, love and loss, past, present and future. Mike spent the better part of 40 years on the creative side of the advertising industry but now creates music full time and is immersed in the Michigan music scene.
In June 2022, Mike emerged with a 12-song album titled, “Particles to Pearls” where he dug deep into love of family (past, present and future) and the idea of how fleeting our time is. His song, “Letting Go”, received an honorable mention in the Great River Folk Fest Songwriting Contest.
A new three-song EP released Oct 7, 2022 is dedicated to those who raise their voice, chase freedom, make their way from other lands to seek refuge and to all those who support basic human ideals. From protecting individual rights and free speech to the issue of immigration we all share responsibility to question wrongs and to fight to make them right.
