Each year the Kerrville Folk Festival invites songwriters to submit two original songs for Kerrville’s Grassy Hill New Folk Songwriting Competition.  Of the more than 750 entries in 2023, 24 finalists were selected and invited to present their 2 songs at the 2023 Kerrville Folk Festival.  A panel of professional touring songwriters selected the 6 award winners who will present the concert at the Mucky Duck on April 30th.

Katie Boeck 
Nashville based singer/songwriter Katie Boeck’s career has been wildly varied. After graduating with a degree in Theater from UCLA, Katie carved her niche as the guitar-slinging actress of Los Angeles which led to a starring role as the Voice of Wendla ( ) in the acclaimed Broadway revival of “Spring Awakening” produced by Deaf West Theater. The play’s success occasioned an appearance on the NBC Nightly News and a 2016 Tony nomination for Best Revival of a Musical. Her acoustic rendition of “Ave Maria” was featured on HBO’s “The Newsroom” and her cover of “The Sign” has been featured on multiple episodes of CBS’s “Love Island”. Her 2023 album was described as “beautiful, restrained folk” (Black Plastic).

Olivia Ellen Lloyd 
Olivia Ellen Lloyd is a West Virginia native and proud of it. Raised by a musician and a public school educator in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, her sound is a combination of her deeply rooted past and her fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants present.  After releasing her debut album, Loose Cannon, in February 2021, Olivia has been on a steady diet of writing, touring and honing her band leading chops in every backroom from Nashville to New York. And it appears that hard work is paying off Loose Cannon< has been quietly winding its way into the hearts and minds of Country and Americana music lovers all over the world.  She has opened for many notable artists and continues to tour the country full time in her 2010 Toyota Sienna.

Jack Summers
Jack Summers is an award-winning songwriter from Weston, Missouri. He found his musical roots in trips to the Walnut Valley Music Festival and Bob Dylan lyrics repurposed as bedtime stories. Jack embraces these influences and is motivated by the challenge of making them resonate with a modern audience.   In 2021, Jack released his debut album, No Longer and Not Yet, a reflection on transitional places and emotions. Like much of his work, this album is about searching for answers. For the past two years, Jack has served as an AmeriCorps VISTA member at Art as Mentorship, a nonprofit that organizes songwriting camps for teenagers with a focus on mental health and community building.

Flamy Grant
Award-winning and Billboard-charting artist Flamy Grant is a shame-slaying, hip-swaying, singing-songwriting drag queen from western North Carolina. Her 2022 debut record, Bible Belt Baby, reached the #1 spot on the iTunes Christian Charts (the first drag performer to achieve this feat) and was nominated for Best Pop Album at the San Diego Music Awards. A powerhouse vocalist and intrepid songwriter who blends folk, gospel, and roots, Flamy drags you into a therapeutic, theatrical mix of storytelling and song.

Byron James
Byron was born in the south but has spent much time in the KC/Lawrence area in Kansas and Missouri. He has been performing since 1969, and has been writing off and on since then. He studied music (music theory and classical guitar) at UMKC (Kansas City) during the early 70s. He has settled in Lawrence, Kansas and is a part of the local music scene. Over the years he has played in numerous bands. He currently plays music solo and with a local band, and continues to write songs and have fun with it.

Barbara Jarell
Barbara Jarrell is a Louisiana native whose first career was music. For years her musical adventures took her all through the south, southwest and west coast of the U.S. In those days even as a predominantly cover artist she found herself on the radio and on the cover of the L.A. Reader and the Foothill Musician magazines. She began writing more originals in the late 90s and has been following that star ever since. Her second career as a Unitarian Universalist minister took her off the performing circuit but added new fodder for her songwriting and musical work—trying to see things from all sides. Many of her songs reflect the notions of inclusion and journeying toward healing, wholeness and deeper understanding. She writes in a broad variety of styles on multiple instruments, sometimes deeply personal, sometimes funny, always engaging.