IM: WHUSDJ
CURRENT SHOW
Pushing the Envelope
Sing Out! is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and will include a paragraph or so each from 60 people involved in folk music in some way. Here's mine:
A few years ago a bunch of us greyhairs were moaning that folk music was going to be lost to the ages – the performers were old, the audiences were old, the promoters were old, us DJs were old. Unbeknownst to us then, a bubbling-up of young performers had started, young performers who love some parts of the old music but have a different way of putting the parts together. Now they’ve reached the surface, these beautiful young bands with their exciting music that isn’t exactly your father’s folk. So yesterday, as I was heading out to do an interview with Sara Watkins, I thought about how things are looking up: festivals are including more young bands and the bands’ audiences are buying tickets. Ah ... but will the “kids” come to individual concerts at local venues? That’s a concern – not all folk venues are the hippest joints in town. And where I live, there don’t seem to be any young volunteers working their way into the venues, yearning to spend untold hours (and maybe even a little money) to present the music. So ... some worries eased, with more to solve.