Michigan Songwriter Showcase hosted by Steve Taylor and featuring Blueskye Riley, Dan Cafferty and Ani Mari
20 Front Street
July 30, 2026
•
7:00 pm
$24.79
My name is BlueSkye Riley. I started out at a young age, somewhere around 11/12, and I opened for Alan Turner and The Steel Horse Band for 3 1/2 years. After that, I started my own band around 16. My initial band played mostly alt-rock music. I then began another band venture where we play a variety of music (rock, alt-rock, pop, classic rock and country). I perform solo, duo and band shows. I have recorded a few songs in Nashville, and I just recorded a song a couple of weeks ago at a local studio. I'll be releasing that song in the near future. In addition to music, I am a full-time college student and am transferring to MSU this Fall. I enjoy playing my acoustic in my dorm room and several originals have come from that
Native Michigander Dan Cafferty is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, recording artist and band leader. He just released his 6th studio album. Some of his material has received national airplay. As a full-time musician, he is performing nearly every week with his 6-piece Jazz band (The Hot Rod Cherries), or his 5-piece Rock/Soul band (The Dan Cafferty Band), or as a solo artist. Cafferty’s unique writing style draws upon many genres. His carefully crafted songs tell intriguing and often humorous stories. His audience-interactive approach to performing is ideally suited for the Songwriters-In-The-Round format.
Singer-songwriter Ani Mari’s debut album, girlfriend, explores the ambiguities of coming of age in a beautifully precarious world. Across ten warmly combative tracks, her songs fight for grace and connection amidst the anxieties, desires, heartbreaks, and oftentimes wearying joie de vivre of being young in America’s heartland.
Though just having graduated college, Ani Mari has been performing solo, with her backing band, and with her folk duo, Ani & Kora, across her home state of Michigan for almost a decade, along the way sharing stages with prominent artists such as James McMurtry, BettySoo, Amelia Day, The Accidentals, Lindsay Lou, and May Erlewine among many others. On tracks like “whitefish bay” and “the prettiest things,” listeners will hear echoes of the forests and waters of the Upper Peninsula where she was raised, and the bluegrass and folk musical influences she grew up around. While the title track, “girlfriend,” might triangulate Ani Mari’s current temperature somewhere between Liz Phair, Waxahachee, and Ratboys, comparisons ultimately fall short. Compelling, alive, humming, and hungry, her indie-folk songwriting is 100% original, and definitely not to be missed.
When not traveling and performing, Ani Mari lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and does sound engineering at the North Star Lounge. Her sophomore album is set to release this August!
Steve Taylor graduated from Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music with a degree in Songwriting. After college, Steve returned home to Michigan and became a fixture in the Detroit music scene while earning a Master’s Degree in Music Theory from Wayne State University. Blending soulful music and intimate lyrics, Steve Taylor performs all over Michigan as a solo acoustic artist and with his band, The Steve Taylor Three. Their latest album “Temporary Heart” was released in 2024 all of their five albums is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever finer music is streamed. The band’s single, “Raining on Christmas”, won the Detroit Music Award for “Outstanding Country Recording” in 2023. “Temporary Heart” won the Michigan Music Award for Best American Album in 2025.