Five songwriters from across the southeast gathered for Lake Martin Songwriters Festival’s 20 and under competition.
For the first time, the winner of the competition would receive a scholarship to the Jeffrey Steele Academy Bootcamp, which was funded through the festival’s t-shirt sales. Taking to the stage Friday night at Russell Crossroads were Ava Connell, Kaitlyn Croker, Jasmine Humphries, Jackson Kane and Leah Slaughter.
After the performances judges Kurtis John and Casey Le'Vasseur announced Connell as the winner of the 20 and under competition. Connell later performed her new single, “One for the Road,” Saturday night at Prime Steakhouse.
Ava Connell
Connell is from Marietta, Georgia, and this is her first competition. She said she had never been in front of a panel of judges before like this, so she was both nervous and excited. Since the age of 12, Connell has been creating and performing music.
“I liked writing in general, writing poems with my grandmother,” Connell said. “Once I started to learn guitar I started to put them together.”
On the Russell Crossroads stage, Connell also sang her first single “One for the Road,” debuting Aug 16, for the first time live.
Kaitlyn Croker
Originally from Maryland, Croker started songwriting full time three years ago when she first moved to Nashville. However, she started singing when she was four years old.
“I was a little girl into my Disney princess movies and my love and passion (for music) just evolved from there,” Croker said. “It just started like any other girl wanting to sing with the Disney princesses.”
She started performing when she was 9 years old and now performs all around the Nashville music scene.
Jasmine Humphries
Humphries goes by the stage name Jazzy Mae and is from Union, South Carolina. She started music at about 5 years old and got her passion for music through church.
Once she got to ninth grade, Humphries got a guitar and started writing songs during her high school years.
“It was a good way to get a lot of emotions out,” she said. “You are growing and changing and feeling all kinds of different things.”
For Humphries, music is also just a part of the family. Her grandfather sang in a quartet when she was young, and she grew up listening to her parents’ music as well.
Jackson Kane
Kane is one of the few locals of the festival from Dadeville and was one of the youngest of the songwriters at 16 years old.
However, Kane started early in music by learning the piano at 3 years old, the bass at 12 and the drums at 14 as well as the guitar during elementary school.
“When I was really little, I listened to my granddad play the guitar and I got my music taste from him and my dad,” he said. “Then when I was seven years old my grandad got me a guitar and from there it was just exponential growth.”
Now for the past year, Kane has begun his songwriting journey.
Leah Slaughter
Slaughter recently moved to Auburn for school but grew up in Columbiana, Alabama. She has been songwriting since she could write.
She started musically when she got a ukulele at 7 years old then around 8, she got a guitar.
“I loved it; I took guitar lessons my parents got for me and then my uncle played guitar and I would sing,” she said. “We would play gigs at restaurants when I was 10 years old.”
Now at 18, Slaughter plays gigs herself in the Birmingham area and she hopes to start playing in the Auburn area as well.
