Shay Lovette

Yesterday, Shay Lovette played guitar on his front porch for Homie the dog.

But on Friday, he will step out on a MerleFest stage and play for a much larger audience.

Lovette, 21, a senior at Appalachian State University in Boone, was a baby in a stroller when his parents first took him to MerleFest.

That is also about the time his dad bought the Martin D-16 guitar that Lovette will play as a finalist in the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest.

His song, "Get It Right," is one of 12 songs chosen for the finals from more than 1,044 entries.

He is the only songwriter from Wilkes County selected for the songwriting contest, which has been held for 18 years.

"It's going to be a blast," Lovette said.

"I didn't expect to be up there, so I'm just going to cherish it. I'm going to be loving it up there."

MerleFest 2010 starts today, with an extraordinarily strong four-day lineup that has been creating a buzz far beyond its setting at Wilkes Community College. More than 100 artists are scheduled to perform.

Doc Watson will open the festival, as he has since 1988. Watson created the festival as a tribute to his late son Merle Watson.

Other big-name performers today include Rhonda Vincent and the Rage, Taj Mahal and the Zac Brown Band.

On Friday, Dailey and Vincent, Dierks Bentley and Little Feat will take the stage.

On Saturday, comedian and musician Steve Martin will take the stage, playing banjo with the Steep Canyon Rangers. Other Saturday performers include Great Big Sea, Elvis Costello.

Sunday, the festival's final day, will feature the Avett Brothers.

Lovette's may be on the same stage as some music-industry heavyweights, but he also has to get through two final exams. One is in a class called "Human Perspectives of Geography." It's about how social science relates to geography, he said, including such things as how people behave in different environments.

"It's very broad," he said. "It's going to be a hard exam."

After that, he turns in one more paper next week and is scheduled to graduate May 9, with a political-science degree. The paper doesn't sound easy, either. It's about the privatization of Social Security.

But his song is easygoing, lilting and upbeat:

The history is history,

The future's up for grabs

So toss out that misery

And pick up the life you have.

His own history includes growing up in a house full of guitars in the Wilkes County community of Purlear.

His father, Rick Lovette, is a poultry farmer who writes songs and plays bluegrass and gospel music. His brother, Chad, an 18-year-old senior at Wilkes Central High School, is a mandolin player. His mother, Beth Lovette, doesn't play, but she helps keep everyone well as Wilkes County's public-health director.

Shay Lovette will be joined on stage by Ali Trombley, a fellow ASU student who will sing harmony and switch between keyboards and fiddle.

The song came to him last year, Lovette said, as he sat playing guitar in his room in a house he rented in Boone with other ASU students.

The song came out of nowhere, something he can't explain.

It talks of dark times, but maintains an unquenchable optimism:

Ever since you were born

There's been a storm over you

But past the blackest clouds,

That sky's forever blue

And everyone gets crazy,

When the full moon's shining bright

And every day's a - Winston-Salem Journal