South Georgia Entertainers (SGE) is “Local musicians who desire to be part of a supportive community with other like-minded musicians are invited to join South Georgia Entertainers. The Turner Center hosts musicians of all genres on the second Tuesday of each month from 6-8 p.m. Led by local musicians Lloyd Carter and Aaron Strickland, the group encourages the gathering of local and regional entertainers to discuss personal and professional concerns relating to the entertainment industry. South Georgia Entertainers is for entertainers only.

South Georgia Entertainers, GuitarKord.com 2023-06-13

I heard they were having a meeting, so I went. I’m not a musician, but WWALS has the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, so I guess I’m an entertainer.

right to left: Aaron Strickland, Robert Mason (GuitarKord.com), Sementha Mathews (Turner Center for the Arts), Kevin Stephenson*, and far left Tom Hochschild* *finalist at Songwriting2022

Aaron invited me to speak after the listed guest speaker, and I invited him to come speak about SGE at the WWALS River Revue, September 22, 2023, including the fifth sixth annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. Aaron said he or Lloyd or Sementha would do that.

You, too, can send in your song, to compete for the $300 First Prize, and the two $50 prizes, one for best song submitted from inside the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia, and the other for best song from outside. Here’s the entry form:
https://forms.gle/ZPbfnnLj5ruum5xk6

Your song can be about any spring, sink, pond, swamp, creek, river, or aquifer in the Suwannee River Basin or Estuary, except for the Santa Fe River Basin, which has its own contest.

Songwriting Flyer 2023

The rain last Tuesday apparently scared off many GRE attendees, but everybody had a good time anyway. They talked a lot about their recent musical event at the Turner Center where many of them played a few songs to a very attentive audience. I believe they’re going to continue doing that quarterly.

Two of the attendees at last week’s GRE meeting were former finalists at the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest: Kevin Stephenson and Tom Hochschild.

Movies: Kevin Stephenson winning Best Country with It Don’t Get No Better Than This, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest 2022-08-20
Videos for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
https://wwals.net/pictures/songwriting2022

Tom Hoschdhild winning best Folk with “Withlacoochee Watershed”
at the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, August, 2019.

The SGE guest speaker was Robert Mason, a local inventor, who has patented a handheld device called GuitarKord; see
https://guitarkord.com/.

With it pretty much anybody can play guitar chords with little effort, bypassing learning complicated fingerings, and with no need for callusses. You can think of it as a moveable capo used with a tuning where each major chord is straight across the neck.

Robert Mason demonstrating GuitarKord.com

Here’s Sementha Mathews trying it out.

Sementha Mathews playing GuitarKord.com

Back at their first meeting, SGE drew more attendees. Yes, that’s me in the hat, left top center.

First meeting of South Georgia Entertainers

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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