Stewart and Vince Gill. In 1996, he won the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Contest, and was discovered by BWE Music. He was signed by the Salt Lake City based independent label (a subsidiary of Bonneville Worldwide Entertainment) and Circle of Friends was re-released in 1997 on the BWE label, with the addition of a few new songs, including, perhaps oddly, the title track. This brought Johns music to a broader audience and allowed him to establish connections which would lead to future collaboration. During the late 90s, he was a finalist in several other festival contests, including the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Colorado and the Napa Valley Music Festival in California. In 1997 he was named Artist of The Year by The National Academy of Songwriters. Genre After being signed to BWE, John moved to Park City, Utah. His touring schedule was extensive, but he maintained a studio presence and did session recordings with artists such as: Felicia Sorenson, Nancy Hanson, Jenny Frogly, Sam Cardon and Kurt Bestor. He also penned songs for True North and several EFY (Especially for Youth) projects. All of this was work done for hire. In spite of this fact, since artists and record companies were eager to use his name as well as his talents on their projects, McVey has been listed as a "Christian" artist even though his music and message have never been religious in nature. "Daddy" McVey has also been a major presence in the world of children's music education. In 1988, John met Ken Guilmartin, founder of Music Together, Inc, and was asked to be a part of an early recording. Since then, McVey has been part of every CD released by Music Together, and is the "daddy" in the virtual family depicted on the CDs. He has also participated in live shows at the Director's Conferences. Artist and producer In 2000, McVey released his second CD, Jigsaw. He again worked with producer Alain Mallet, guitarist Duke Levine (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ellis Paul) and bassist Mike Rivard (Paula Cole), this time adding drummer Dave Mattacks (Paul McCartney, Fairport Convention). This CD was released by Native Language Music and distributed by NAVAR. Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, while touring extensively, McVey had begun producing albums for local and national artists in the folk rock genre. He was noticed by Coupe Studios, and in 2002 was hired on