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The efolkMusic almost-ten-year report, from the CEO's desk: |
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Dear friends of folk music, We'll be celebrating ten years of operation in August, and if you think about it, it's been a really  incredible time to be in the music business. We've come a long way from the days when efolkMusic was the only online outlet for many of our artists, when folks said "what's an MP3?" as they browsed one of the first websites to offer downloads by the track. (Check us out on the "Wayback Machine" as we appeared in 1999!!!) We made it through the "dot-com" bust in 2000, became a nonprofit dot-org in 2003, and are now doing our best to wade through the "great recession" of 2009-??. (whew...) Like most nonprofits, we live close to the edge in the good times - it goes without saying that the current downturn has affected our bottom line. Would you consider helping out?
efolkMusic continues to be relevant and valuable for our fans and artists, and we've now rolled out "efolkMusic 2.0", a vastly more usable and accessible website. Cruise around a bit, you'll see pretty quick what we are about.
Here's what this nonprofit does every day to support this "endangered" art form and fulfill our mission:
- We provide a free online presence to more than 700 exceptional independent artists, a veritable "Folk/Americana MySpace" to keep these musicians in "high touch" with fans
- We use our website to serve over 20,000 page views each month to 5,000 visitors, spreading "all things folk" around the world 24/7
- Our resource includes a library of more than 1300 songs available for full-length preview and immediate download (Members only MP3s), many more tracks on individual artist pages
- We provide and maintain interactive databases of folk festivals, folk radio shows, plus music videos, a streaming radio station, folk music news feeds and more
- We promote awareness of our artists and their music with syndicated RSS feeds and a twice-monthly newsletter that goes to 9,000 registered subscribers
Try "the Google" for "folk music nonprofits"; efolkMusic is arguably the only organization of it's kind. If you care about this music, please consider helping out with a membership or donation, no amount to small or large. And if you know James Taylor or Bob Dylan, could you forward this to them? Please?
Regards,
Chris Frank
efM CEO and Founder
PS The donate button is down right- and you can click here to learn about supporting us with a membership. |
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New and Notable: Levon Helm Releases "Electric Dirt" |
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Electric Dirt (Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard Records) is the second album in the last two years  from American musical treasure Levon Helm. Its predecessor, Dirt Farmer, his first solo LP in a quarter century, followed Levon’s near-miraculous recovery from throat cancer, and as such represented a new lease on life for the legendary artist, who rose to prominence as the drummer and vocalist for Levon and the Hawks, which later became The Band.
Levon enlisted his old friend and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Allen Toussaint to join the Levon Helm Band. Toussaint first worked with The Band on 1971's 'Cahoots,' on which he arranged the New Orleans-style horns for "Life Is a Carnival." They followed up that successful collaboration with an extended partnership for 1972's double-live album 'Rock of Ages.' |
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Welcome to efolkMusic 2.0! |
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 Welcome to the latest version of efolkMusic, definitely a web 2.0 site, maybe 2.1, all new, top to bottom. Although "web 2.0" is usually defined by a website that is interactive and dynamic rather than static (which we have been for a long time), I like this take from a comment at WSJ's allthingsD.com:
"Web 2.0 was not a new version of the web, but a name that tried to capture what distinguished the companies that survived the dotcom bust from those that didn't, and point the way forward for new companies entering the market"
We've survived, thanks to great artists and fans - we're going on TEN YEARS this fall! Take a look around- browse the "Listen & Download" area with FULL-LENGTH previews of every track, add your fester or radio show to our database listings, cruise artist pages for more info, videos, downloads, on and on, try it out and let us know what you think!
PS In case you care: efolkMusic runs on an Apache 2.0 Linux server, PHP 5.1.6, using Joomla content management system with Community Builder artist pages. We've left the Microsoft World-of-Errors and high-priced programmers for the collaborative open source community- and we couldn't be happier!
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efolkMusic - "an invitation-only MySpace for folk / Americana artists" |
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Interested in being a part of our community? If you make music that you think our visitors would like, and you want to get it into more ears, just let us know where we can give a listen.
Our artist pages allow you to publish a "myspace-style" mini-website, with complete blog, video and audio sample upload, media players, contact form, very customizable, simple word-style editors, please stop me.
We promote artists and their music on the site and distribute promotional MP3s on our "WEFM" streaming station, through RSS feeds like the "Song of the Week", and in our bi-monthly newsletter that goes out to 9,000+ registered FOLK FANATICS!!!
Contact the Home Office for more info, we want to hear your music- maybe we can help get it into some more ears!
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efolkMusic MP3/CD Sampler, Volume 5: 100 songs, over 4 hours of music!! |
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We're excited to announce the release of volume 5 of our popular MP3/CD sampler! This is an actual CD with 100  songs in mp3 format that we send to all new supporting members of our nonprofit, or for any donation of $30 or more. Folk, bluegrass, Celtic, Americana, Old-time, Country, and more, this is a great way to find new music. Our editors take the "pick of the litter" to put on these samplers, with more than 4 hours of music from our exceptional roster of independent artists. Your donation or subscription is tax-deductible (we're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit), and your support keeps this website going and growing- click here for more information!
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Get the News with RSS::: |
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Add this new RSS feed to your RSS reader/iGoogle/yahoo, etc and get music and music related news-nuggets collected round the world by our crack news department- all seriousness aside, folks, click for the late-breaking stories... |
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Success: Don Dixon's "Word" |
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Quite often I get asked, indirectly, about my lack of success. “If all these people think you’re so good, why haven’t I ever heard of you before?” “Why aren’t you famous?” “Do you know anybody famous?” As I poured myself a second cup of coffee this morning I decided to give this topic some serious thought. I’ve never bothered giving my level of success serious thought since I don’t care much. Perhaps I’ve stolen from the wrong people or stolen too little…or too much. Or lacked focus. That’s it. I’ve lacked focus. Ok, what does that mean? I jump around from genre to genre.I don’t fit into a marketable group.I don’t communicate my ideas in a straight-forward manner.People can’t understand what points I’m trying to make.My framework is too broad, too obscure.My framework is too simple, too trite. |
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