Donna Ulisse and Marc Rossi onstage during the Just Plain Folks Awards.

Nashville, Tenn., — Singer songwriter Donna Ulisse and her co-writer Marc Rossi were onstage at the Just Plain Folks Awards on Saturday, August 29, 2009 accepting the award for Best Bluegrass Song for their composition “I’m Calling Heaven Down.” The song was the lead track on Ulisse’s bluegrass release When I Look Back and is still played regularly on Sirius XM’s Bluegrass Junction. Ulisse was chosen to represent the bluegrass genre on the show and had just finished performing the song with her band The Poor Mountain Boys when it was called out as the winning bluegrass song.

Ulisse and Rossi have co-written several songs that have ended up on When I Look Back as well as her current release, Walk This Mountain Down. Rossi is often referred to affectionately by Ulisse as “Monday Marc” in interviews since they have had a standing Monday co-writing appointment for many years building a large co-written catalog of songs. Rossi also wrote the 80’s #1 country hit “You Could’ve Heard A Heart Break” recorded by Johnny Lee of Urban Cowboy fame.

Just Plain Folks is a community of over 51,500 Songwriters, Recording Artists and Music Industry Professionals – and host to the world’s largest independent music awards. The organization was created to provide a network of cooperation and inclusion for musicians. 42,000 albums and 560,000 songs were submitted for the awards screening process making it the largest awards show of any kind in the world. With so many submissions to screen, the show is only held every two years. Entertainers and musicians flew in from all over the world to appear on the awards show held at Nashville’s Wildhorse Saloon.

To learn more about Donna Ulisse visit her website at DonnaUlisse.com or her MySpace site at myspace.com/donnastanleyulisse

– From Hadley Music Group