Dawson Whitefield

Dawson Whitefield writes songs, plays guitar for other people, and manages a car wash during the week.

SALTYmf met him at the Fernandina Beach Songwriter Festival and taped this the next day for Salty's Live Music on the SALTYmf GOAT Podcast. He is from Georgia, went to school in Jacksonville, and ended up on the island by accident. He and his college friend Simeon had settled on Perdido Key or Orange Beach and had already gone and looked at apartments. Then a job came up here and the plan came apart. His father's line for that is man plans, God laughs.

He got the bug from his parents' music out on the lake, Lionel Richie and Zac Brown, and picked up a guitar around 13. He played for church and did not start writing until college, when he and Simeon began putting out songs the two of them had written. He plays rhythm and some lead for Andrea now and writes with Caitlin Rogers, who he went to high school with. He has no interest in being a front man. He likes the side pocket and says making other people sound good plays to his strength. His taste went from country, rap and Christian in high school to bluegrass and rock, and he keeps coming back to how much of it traces to the blues. He likes that music has no age rules either. A 14 year old can be better than somebody who has played for ten years, which he says just means he has to step up.

He had grown up vacationing here without ever noticing the music, and knew he wanted in on it the week he moved. The town gives him live audiences seven days a week in his own backyard, which is the part he keeps coming back to. He says there should never be bad blood in music, that it is supposed to bring people together. He is hunting a first EP this year, about five songs, plus something with Andrea and something with Caitlin Rogers. He posts every show on Instagram.