Showcase Artist Deadline for Folk Alliance's 19th International Business Conference

Press release
Source: Cash Edwards Music Services

The 19th annual international convention of the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance (Folk Alliance) is coming to Memphis, Tennessee. With over 2,000 attendees, the conference offers a complete view of the business world of traditional and contemporary folk music and dance through 150 showcases drawn from every possible genre of folk, as well as films, workshops, and a networking-rich tradeshow.

Artists wanting to showcase in Performance Alley need to submit before October 27, 2006. Artists’ discounted price ($225) will be honored until January 5, 2007 for unselected artists.  Over 150 artists will perform twice each during the conference. Go to Folk.org or Sonicbids to apply or call 901/522-1170.

The business conference will be held at the Memphis Convention Center and Memphis Marriott Downtown February 21 - 25, 2007. During the conference, registrants attend panels that provide useful insight for achieving success in the field of folk music and dance. Artists will perform for promoters, booking agents, and record label representatives, mingle with radio and print media, music publishers and others who make the business of folk happen. Reserve your hotel room soon in order to be confirmed at our host hotel, the Memphis Marriott, 888-557-8740.

The Folk Alliance has been talking with the FolkDJ-L editors and Richard Gillman and they have reached an agreement to publish the FolkDJ-L charts which Richard compiles. The Folk Alliance will publish the top twenty-five selections of each list on their website, Folk.org, under the "Resources" section and will also publish compiled charts in the Folk Alliance Newsletters. The four charts are TOP ALBUMS of the Month, TOP SONGS of the Month, TOP ARTISTS of the Month, and TOP LABELS of the Month.

FolkDJ-L is the folk-music-on-the-radio listserv that serves as a virtual gathering point for all manner of FolkDJs as well as others interested in keeping up with folk-on-the-radio including artists, publicists, record labels, managers, agents, even fans.  Playlists are posted, information is exchanged and issues pertaining to folk music and radio are debated.  FolkDJ-L was founded by Tina Hay in 1993.  Mike Yuhas took over as listmom in 1997.  A couple of years ago he passed it on to the current committee consisting of Arthur Berman, Bob Blackman, Mike Regenstreif and Paul Stamler. Membership is free and open to anyone who's interested.  For more info please visit folkradio.org.

The process of compiling the charts/lists is automated. Richard does hand correct some obvious errors and typos. The results are based on playlists posted to FOLKDJ-L during the calendar month. Richard wrote a pair of programs that work with the Eudora email program's filtering feature. One program parses each playlist as it comes in and adds it to a spreadsheet. The second program processes the spreadsheet into a readable report. Playlists have to include artist, song and album name (label is optional) and be in a reasonably regular format for Richard’s program to be able to parse them.

The Folk Alliance is excited to work with these DJ's who have put in many hours of volunteer time to make FolkDJ-L such a worthwhile effort in support of Folk music.

Folk Alliance Mission:
The North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance exists to foster and promote traditional, contemporary, and multicultural folk music, dance, and related performing arts in North America. The Folk Alliance seeks to strengthen organizational and individual initiatives in folk music and dance through education, networking, advocacy, and professional and field development.