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The 7th Annual CMT NSAI Song Contest
Listen to each of these emerging songwriters, and vote for your favorite to receive the CMT Listener's Choice Award. Fans have until April 23, 2007, to vote on their favorite song.
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 Vote Now
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"Tennessee Cowboy"
Wayne Smotherman/Nelson Biddle/Celeste Krenz
Nashville native Wayne Smotherman may have a background in information technology, but his heart belongs to songwriting.
Nelson Biddle, a former Marine, is also a single father. Born in Tenn., he's lived around the world.
Now a Nashville citizen, Celeste Krenz was born in North Dakota. She is a full-time musician.
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"Country Music Spoken Here"
Martin Gibson
Martin Gibson first picked up a guitar at age 11. While he's worked as a surveyor, teacher, plumber, electrician, carpenter and social worker, his lifelong love of words and music are what brings him here..
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"Dang"
Jackie DiPillo/Lisa Chamberlin/Chris Caminiti
Growing up in Okla. as an accomplished clarinetist, Jackie DiPillo found out what that "spiral full of chicken-scratch" under her bed really was when she moved to Nashville --song ideas. Many notebooks later, she's now having a blast putting love and life into all her songs.
Lisa Chamberlin is a singer-songwriter from New Jersey, now pursuing her dream in Nashville. Although at home while performing and reaching an audience, her greatest passion is songwriting.
A classically-trained pianist, self-taught guitarist, and admitted rookie to the songwriting circuit, Chris Caminiti recently left his high school Algebra position to write full-time in Nashville.
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"Adelie"
Steve Leslie
Steve Leslie has been performing as a guitarist and vocalist since the age of fifteen. After graduating Berklee College of Music with a B.S. in Professional Music, he now resides in his home state of Missouri and performs as many as six shows per week.
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"Tell Me"
Jon Nite/Bud Tower
Jon Mark Nite was born into a Texas family of music, and he resisted the family tradition until his teen years when he fell in love with country music.
Bud Tower moved to Nashville from his long-time home in New Orleans in 2003 to pursue his songwriting career full-time after having visited Music Row almost monthly for several years.
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"The Shape of a Cross"
Tom Bohn
Tom Bohn is a fireman/ paramedic in the Atlanta area, as well as a guitarist and singer with a passion for writing contemporary country and Christian songs that move the spirit.
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"Glory Land"
Russ Pruitt
Ohio native Russ Pruitt is married to Carolyn, his high school sweetheart. A father of three, he grew up playing spoons with his bluegrass pickin' family and says that's probably how he ended up as a drummer.
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"Crimes Against Ohio"
Donna Galbraith/Tim Wheeler
Donna Galbraith has been actively pursuing a songwriting career for 10 years. An air traffic controller, she hopes to transfer to Nashville soon.
Born and raised in Detroit, Tim Wheeler has been writing songs since he was a teenager. He started playing piano at an early age, and his piano teacher used to say it was just enough to make him dangerous. He lives in Motown with his wife and children.
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"The Fall Back Inn"
Bill Ritchie/Susan Suruda
Bill Ritchie arrived in Nashville in 1971 and eventually appeared on children's TV as a character called Highway Bill (a nickname to this day). Currently, he spends his time co-writing and performing frequently in clubs around Nashville.
Susan Suruda is a relative newcomer to the Nashville music scene, though she's been a performer for most of her life. It wasn't until her mom dared her to enter a song contest in 1996 that she wrote her first song, and she hasn't looked back since.
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"The Other Me"
Jan Edwards/Eric Measel
Jan Edwards cut her teeth on folk, lost her innocence to rock, grooved on jazz, and came of age with country. Her songwriting reflects the influence of her experiences.
After 20 years of playing the club circuit in Ohio, Eric Measel had the musical experience of his life when he was introduced the Dayton/Cincinnati NSAI chapter in late 2000. Changing his focus from running a regional band to pursuing a songwriting career, he moved to Nashville in 2006.
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"She Takes After Me"
Greg Valente/Rick Reames
Originally from New Haven, Conn., Greg now lives in Greenville, S.C., where he writes, records and plays between frequent trips to Nashville. Greg discovered his passion for writing at an early age on the family piano, but these days a guitar is his primary instrument.
Rick Reames began writing after buying and old acoustic guitar for $80. He currently lives in Simpsonville, S.C., with his wife and four children.
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"Hold On"
Keith Larsen
Keith Larsen is a career firefighter living in Grove City, Ohio, with his wife and two children. He loves to travel, learns about life from his kids and enjoys the many friends he has met through writing.
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"Cavalier"
Amy Loftus
Amy Loftus is an artist. She has been a painter, as well as a professional actress and dancer, and has been singing and writing since she spontaneously hopped up on stage with a local band while studying improvisation in her hometown of Chicago. Determined she could succeed at both acting and music, Loftus moved to Los Angeles and worked in television, film and theatre. Worn out by 2001, she sold all of her possessions, moved into her van and traveled around playing music until she ended up in Nashville in the spring of 2002.
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