A Columbus-based folk artist is to be featured at Mohawk Historical Society's third annual Christmas concert, set for 7 p.m. Dec. 3 in Eden Township Hall in Melmore. The concert, with Rj Cowdery, is to benefit Hospice of Seneca and Wyandot counties.
This event is free (the society picks up all expenses) and all money donated will be split equally between this year's recipients - Hospice of Seneca and Wyandot counties. Seating on the floor and balcony is limited to the first 150 patrons.
Over the many years since she wrote her first songs as a teenager, Cowdery experienced a lifetime of stops and starts, with breakthroughs followed by distractions and obligations that she said took her away from her lifelong dream of being a professional singer/songwriter.
Cowdery, who first developed a regional following in the mid-'90s, has been making up for lost time this past year, receiving major accolades at some of the most prestigious folk festivals in the U.S.
She recently released a debut album "One More Door."
A gathering of 13 songs, "One More Door" - a title reflective of the promise of her current career good fortune - was recorded live in two days in Parkersburg, W.Va., with percussionist Ammed Solomon and guitarist Michael Lipton, who are band members with International Public Radio's Mountain Stage. The sessions for the recording, which were produced by singer-songwriter Todd Burge, also features the bass playing of Don Dixon, a veteran singer, songwriter, musician and producer of such pop icons as R.E.M., Marti Jones, Kim Carnes, Hootie & The Blowfish and Marshall Crenshaw.
In 2007, Cowdery was a co-winner of The Mountain Stage New Song Contest, one of North America's premier showcases of emerging performing songwriters. The contest finals were conducted in New York City and were part of a summer long process of live regional rounds conducted in some of the best listening rooms in the U.S. and Canada.
In May 2008, she was selected as a co-winner of the Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Contest in Kerrville, Texas- at 37 years, the longest running music festival of its kind in North America and a mecca for singer/songwriters of varying musical styles.
While she only recently began performing again at these festivals and numerous coffeehouses throughout Ohio, over the years she has racked up a slate of performances that took her everywhere from Cleveland and Cincinnati to Memphis and Telluride, Colo. She has appeared in concert with pop/folk icons Steve Forbert, Jonathan Edwards, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Sally Fingerett, Bill Miller, Don Dixon and Christina Olson.
