Zoe Mulford is a songwriter, solo performer, and 1986 graduate of Strath Haven High School who was inducted to the Wall of Honor in 2019.
According to her website, Mulford is best known as the writer of “The President Sang Amazing Grace,” which was later recorded by Joan Baez and voted 2018 “Song of the Year” by Folk Alliance International.
For Mulford, music was always an important part of her life. She started singing from the time she was a small child and began learning the piano from the time she could touch the keys.
“The President Sang Amazing Grace” tells the story of the 2015 attack that claimed nine lives at the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC.
When she attended Swarthmore High School, which became Strath Haven High School during her sophomore year, she was a Camerata member, which, in those days, was a small vocal group that you had to audition for.
The people who continued with music after high school were the people who could audition for a music school or a conservatory. She could not get into a music program because she learned very well by ear and her sight reading was weak.
“The people advising me said, ‘You’re smart. Go do something else.’ So I did. I went to Harvard and studied Chinese,” Mulford said.
After she graduated from Harvard in 1991, she moved to North Carolina and started hanging out with people who played the guitar for fun and made string band music. These were musicians who did not read traditional music scores and learned everything by ear.
“I was studying with a teacher who taught me to pick some of these Appalachian tunes, and he would teach me the chords that went along with them,” Mulford said. “And once I had my three chords, he sent me out to the picking sessions to sit with the traditional musicians, and I would sit on the edge of the circle and play my three chords, and that’s how I learned to play the guitar.”
The guitar players introduced her to the songwriters, and she started getting up on stage with the guitar and performing her own songs. She picked up the guitar in 1993, started her first album in 2000, and released her first album in 2003.
“Nobody has ever authorized me to do this. The only reason I’ve been doing it is because I decided I wanted to, and I’ve been fortunate enough to find people who wanted to listen to me,” Mulford said.
She began her music career at the beginning of the Internet, compact disc, and digital recording.
“Making your own recordings had become much easier and cheaper, and a lot of people were doing it, and all of a sudden you could go online, and you could sell your own music,” Mulford said.
According to Avi Wisnia, a singer-songwriter based in Philadelphia, Mulford hosted the first meeting of the Philly Songwriter Circle, which has over 500 members in multiple states.
“She has since helped lead a lot of those workshops, giving invaluable advice to both new and veteran songwriters,” Wisnia said. “She’s really been able to help impart wisdom and help other songwriters shape their songs.”
Mulford splits her time between the United States and England and is a talented multi-instrumentalist. She was also a finalist at the Kerrville and Falcon Ridge Folk Festivals.
“She’s one of those rare artists that combines quality songwriting with wonderful musicianship and an intelligence that allows her songs to speak very loudly even when they’re very soft and soothing,” Wisnia said.
