Wally Lawder is a collector of stories. He discovers them in coffee shops and street corners, casual conversations, in the seemingly ordinary events of daily life. They have a way of spinning around his mind and wandering onto notepads. They feed his imagination, and sometimes end up in his songs... After performing a set at a music festival, someone came up to him and remarked “You are my favorite performer here, and I have to say, you write about some of the most unusual things!” He was a finalist in the 2009 Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Contest and winner of the 2008 Gila River Songwriting Competition. Pulitzer Prize winning poet Stephen Dunn calls him "both a romantic and a social critic."
Wally is originally from Kansas, but grew up in Connecticut and lived several years in the Princeton, NJ area before moving to southern New Mexico in 2003. His eclectic life path has led him to work as a nonprofit catalyst, carpenter, alternative energy consultant/technician, holistic educator and cognitive therapist, not to mention a brief, but strangely memorable stint as a waiter in a Karaoke bar. All of these experiences and more have been inspiration for his muse. A musician for many years, he didn't start writing his own material until the later 1990's. "I really took a liking to performers like John Gorka, Ellis Paul, Patty Larkin, Susan Werner, Bruce Cockburn. I could relate so much to their songwriting and was inspired to write my own." Since that time he has been a prolific songwriter with 3 CDs of original music and another one on the way.
After moving to New Mexico the influences of "the land of enchantment" have surfaced in the two albums he has come out with since ("My Place" and "Back to the Adobe Cafe"). In the southwest he became a favorite at the Glenwoodstock Festival and is a regular at the Tucson Folk Festival. He has achieved his initial goal of creating a substantial body of quality work and developing into a solid, engaging performer, and is always looking to reach a wider range of audience for both his songwriting and performing skills. Wally's shows are intimate in feel and he enjoys establishing a rapport with his audiences and creating a mood uniquely suited to each event. While he sings about a wide spectrum of experience, overall his message is upbeat and life affirming.
Wally performs in various configurations, and for years has performed solo or with his backing band, the Flying Coyotes. In 2009 he added performing as a duo with the gifted Brandie Thornburg--this has become increasingly successful and popular! He is in the process of recording a new, duo album with Brandie, to be released in late summer of 2010.