Award-winning songwriting

Jared Deck has been praised for his "powerful, beautiful voice" by Alejandro Escovedo. Raised on the dusty plains of an Oklahoma family farm, Jared worked in the fields as well as the town grocery, owned by his parents. Later he worked in an oilfield and a factory. During the Great Recession he got by with a job as a pianist in a Black church, where over the next six years, he received an unparalleled musical education. His songs tell stories in an honest voice of Midland America. "The American Dream" won first place in the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival Songwriting Competition.

Mike Vial is a singer-songwriter and educator based in Ann Arbor. He won the Ypsilanti Songwriting Festival award in 2010 and the Blue Owl Songwriting award in 2014. He teaches at Community High School.