Songwriter Night Supporting the Westhaven Habitat for Humanity Build

For the second year, the Westhaven community is sponsoring an entire house to be built again in Columbia. Recipients of this year’s house are single parent Heather Cater and her three daughters. As the primary sponsor of the Build, we have committed to raising $70,000, the amount needed to purchase most of the building materials for the Cater home. All proceeds from this event will go toward achieving our fundraising goal.

A great cause and a great line-up of songwriters!

Kent Blazy grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, playing in various local bands. By the mid-’70s, he was touring as a guitar player for Canadian legend Ian Tyson. After a first-place win in a national songwriting competition, Kent decided to make the move to Nashville. In 1982, Gary Morris sent Kent’s “Headed For A Heartache” to #5 on the Country chart. Soon after, other cuts followed with The Forester Sisters, T. Graham Brown, Donna Fargo and Moe Bandy.In 1987, Kent was introduced to new demo singer Garth Brooks. The two began writing together, and their first collaboration, “If Tomorrow Never Comes,” became Brooks’ first #1 single and NSAI’s 1989 Song of the Year. Their writing partnership yielded four additional Top 5 songs including the #1 “Ain’t Goin’ Down.” Kent also was a co-writer on the Brooks & George Jones duet “Beer Run (B-Double E-Double Are You In?),” as well as on “That’s What I Get For Lovin’ You” by Diamond Rio, and on Chris Young’s first #1 hit “Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song. Kent was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2020.

At the age of 26, Leslie Satcher, a native Texan, made the move to Nashville in pursuit of a singing career and was quickly recognized for her gift with lyric and melody Though Leslie is primarily known as a country singer and songwriter, her talents cross all genres. She has written or co-written songs that have been recorded by everyone from Willie Nelson to Jason Aldean; Vince Gill to Sheila E.; George Strait to Sheryl Crow; Martina McBride to Keb’Mo; Blake Shelton to Bonnie Raitt; Stevie Nicks to Maren Morris and many, many more. She has received multiple BMI “Million-Air” awards recognizing a song’s one millionth airplay and her incomparable vocals contribute to an astounding number of Grammy, CMA & ACM award winning projects. Last June, Leslie was nominated to the Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. She will be a part of the 2025 class inducted to the Texas Songwriters’ Hall of Fame along with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller.

Grammy nominated songwriter/producer Rafe Van Hoy is one of Nashville's most accomplished songwriters having written over 10 number one singles and over twenty top ten singles in various genres with over 150 million albums sold worldwide. Raised in Bristol, Tenn., Rafe Van Hoy and his family moved to Nashville after he graduated from high school in 1972. Curly Putman signed him to Green Grass Music, which led to a publishing deal with Tree International. In 1976, Van Hoy found success as a writer on the George Jones/Tammy Wynette classic “Golden Ring.” His catalog of writing hits would grow to include the 1983 best country song Grammy-nominated “Baby I Lied” (Deborah Allen), “Friday Night Blues” and “I’m Only In It For the Love” (John Conlee), “Hurt Me Bad (In a Real Good Way)” (Patty Loveless), “Let’s Stop Talkin’ About It” (Janie Fricke) and “What’s Forever For” (recorded by artists including Michael Martin Murphey, Anne Murray, Johnny Mathis, B.J. Thomas and Olivia Newton-John). Rafe was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in the fall of 2023.

Host or Publisher The Westhaven Foundation