2016 NewSong grand prize winner Wilder Adkins releases peace anthem “Side By Side” on MLK Jr. Day

“This is a song about the city of Birmingham, Alabama and the struggles of the civil rights movement in the 1960s,” says Adkins, a Birmingham resident himself. “It is also an anthem for peace and a call to keep hoping and never give up fighting darkness with the power of light.”

ABOUT WILDER ADKINS
Wilder Adkins songwriting gleans as much from the earthy poetry of Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver as it does from the works of folk luminaries Richard Thompson and Bruce Cockburn. His courtly-but-witty lyrics evoke a Deep South Shelley or Yeats, riding a joyful guitar dexterity.

Adkins hails from Marietta, GA, but now lives and writes in Birmingham, AL. He grew up listening to his dad play renditions of Neil Young and Van Morrison songs on an old Guild Jumbo Acoustic. Adkins’ songs, steeped in natural imagery, frequently touch upon the subjects of faith, doubt, and as the title of his new album would indicate, hope and sorrow.

Adkins is the grand prize winner of the 2016 international NewSong Music Performance & Songwriting Competition.