Monica Rizzio. A unique Americana singer-songwriter who blends Texas influences and Cape Cod charm. A bonfire on a beach. A couple of days with the one you love. Simply doing…nothing. The little joys in life. Americana singer-songwriter Monica Rizzio’s new album, Sunshine Is Free, is all about the simple things that make it all worth it. The concept for Sunshine Is Free was born on the road, as Rizzio spent time under open skies while touring. Realizing she needed to step outside of a New England winter to write the follow-up to 2016’s Washashore Cowgirl, Rizzio spent the fall of 2018 traveling from her home in Cape Cod to Nashville for writing sessions. Over a week in April at Skinny Elephant Recording, she and producer Michael Rinne (Caroline Spence, Erin Rae & The Meanwhiles, Kelsey Waldon) as well as a stacked lineup of guest musicians including Mindy Smith, Maya de Vitry, Gwen Sebastian, Joe Pisapia, Will Kimbrough, and Eamon McLoughlin, Rizzio created a collection that focuses on finding joy in simpler things and looking for the silver lining of difficult situations.
James Lee Baker
Winner 2024 Rose Garden Performing Songwriter Competition
Birthed from the dusty high plains of the bible belt, wordsmith James Lee Baker sources the essence of his craft from a small-town past and a journey of self-discovery as the way out. Laced with mysticism, his emotive and thought-provoking songs speak to the shared, tender heart of our human condition.
In 2020, he released 100 Summers – a full-length LP of songs centered around a theme of change. The title track reached #1 on the FAI Folk charts that month, garnering nearly half a million streams across platforms. Two of the songs on the project –Returning to Paris and The Last Cowboy in Hutchinson County – were selected as finalists for several nationally-known songwriting contests.
In 2022, he released a cover project called “Impressions”, recorded by Chris Bell (U2, The Eagles) and produced by Roscoe Beck (Eric Johnson, Leonard Cohen), which was released in 2022. The single “Did Galileo Pray?”, a cover of Ellis Paul, charted #10. John Apice from Americana Highways said “Baker’s cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Just Like a Woman’ is one of the finest I ever heard. He captures the lyric, understands it and possesses it as a first-class interpreter.”
Charlotte Morris
Winner 2025 Rose Garden Performing Songwriter Competition
Growing up near Philadelphia, Charlotte Morris found her passion for music early, learning multiple instruments and writing songs by age twelve. Influenced by folk classics and female storytellers like Joni Mitchell and Brandi Carlile, she developed a genuine, raw, and emotional style.
After touring with “Lonesome Traveler” in 2018, performing alongside folk legends, Charlotte released her debut EP “To New York, with Love,” followed by the “Sputnik” EP and a national acoustic tour. Her first full-length album, “Songs For My Next Ex” (2020), received critical acclaim, prompting her move to Nashville in 2021.
There, she participated in The Johnny Mercer Foundation’s Songwriters Project, mentored by industry greats. In 2022, Charlotte partnered with Charlotte Avenue Entertainment, releasing impactful singles like “Good Kind of Hurt” and “Tennessee.” Her second studio album, “Wild Child” (2023), gained international recognition. After a 30-city international tour in 2024, Charlotte returned to Philadelphia, with new music and tours on the horizon. She holds a degree in Theatre from Northwestern University.
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Christine Lavin started her professional life as a waitress/bread baker at the Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY in 1975 where she met Dave Van Ronk who encouraged her to study guitar with him in NYC. She took his advice and is now a singer/songwriter/guitarist/recording artist/author/videographer based in New York City. Her latest solo album, her 25th, ON MY WAY TO HOOTERVILLE, includes 10 new songs and one re-worked song, “Ramblin’ Waltz,” a re-telling of her time in 1975 when she was an entourage driver for the first week of Bob Dylan‘s iconic “Rolling Thunder Revue” tour.
In 2023 Christine released “The Seasons Project,” an 80-song seasonal compilation that features the work of 63 American, Canadian, British and Irish singer/songwriters. Christine assembled this compilation to help guide future historians and folklorists to authentic music being written in the last two decades of the 20th Century and the first two of the 21st Century.
In 2024 she is completing her 26th solo album, DRUM SCHOOL DROPOUT, hoping to have it completed in 2025.
In October 2024 there were 11 performances of “InunDATEd,” a 90 minute theatrical production that showcased nine of Christine’s songs by the York Theatre in NYC. There will be one more workshop production before the show is released world-wide. The most recent production starred two thrilling Broadway veterans, Kate Rockwell and Taylor Crousore
HONORS AND AWARDS: In May 2021 Christine received an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from her alma mater, the State University of New York at Brockport. In an odd twist, she has a younger brother also named Chris (born on Columbus Day) who also in May 2021 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from his alma mater, Hobart/William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.
