FLORENCE, Ala. — After the pandemic caused a one-year hiatus, the Muscle Shoals Songwriters Festival is back with more than 90 songwriters and performers ready to share their talents.

The festival began in 2019, founded by then 19-year-old Lillian Glanton.

“I’m a singer-songwriter myself,” Glanton said. “I traveled all across the country playing songwriters festivals and I would come back home to the Shoals area, where I’ve lived all of my life, and I always said to myself, ‘why is there not a songwriters festival here?'”

With Muscle Shoals dubbed the “Hit Recording Capital of the World, Glanton also saw the songwriting talent in the area, and thus, the festival was born.

2019 set the stage for an exciting annual event, however, COVID-19 had other plans.

Glanton said there is a brighter side to the pandemic, “Even though it was absolutely awful and so detrimental to the world, is that we had two years to plan this festival, so we had the opportunity to grow it to maximum and even bigger than we had it in 2019.”

With more than 30 Grammy award-winning songwriters in the festival’s lineup, Glanton said she wants people to take away not only the experience but also the connections and creations that come with having so many talented artists in one place.

The festival begins Friday, November 5, and goes through November 6. For information on artists and tickets, click here.