SALISBURY TWP., Pa. – Music Mondays are back, and we are thrilled to welcome the Lehigh Valley’s own Maria Woodford to our studio ahead of her very busy summer performance season.
She blends the blues, folk, and jazz music, her website says.
She talked about how she got her start, pointing out she has been singing since she was a little kid.
Her sound and style are very unique, with a heavy emphasis in her love for storytelling. She said writing and performing music is a good way to process what happens in real life, and a way to connect with people.
She said her songs are “snapshots of a feeling.”
Woodford, who’s from Hellertown, won a number of awards for both her songwriting and her music.
She’s a third-place winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest for her song, “Travellin’ On,” a semi-finalist in the International Blues Competition, and a Jim Beam Grant Recipient, her website says.
Her website says she is the first, and one of only two, artists to be granted mechanical rights to Nina Simone’s “Do I Move You,” which is given only to those artists handpicked by Nina Simone’s daughter, according to how well their rendition honors the original meaning of the song.
Woodford said she will be at the Pine Ridge Music Festival in Albrightsville, in the Poconos, this weekend. She will be doing a vocal awakening workshop at the festival Saturday morning. All the workshops are included in the price of the festival tickets.
Tickets are still available.
She will be performing at 8 p.m. June 25 at Godfrey Daniels, a music listening room venue in Bethlehem. People can go to the venue’s website for tickets.