FolkWorld #79 11/2022
© Editorial by Michael Moll

FolkWorld 25th Anniversary 1997-2022

The F Word

25 Years FolkWorld - A Reflection from Founder and Editor Michael Moll

It was just after midnight, on 1 November 1997, (and no – Halloween had no influence on that timing!) that the first edition of FolkWorld went online. Modest in size: in the English edition 11 (very short) CD reviews, 3 articles, 3 live reviews – in the German edition 26 CD reviews, 2 articles, 2 live reviews; modest in the size of the team (well we started with 2 contributors!); modest in design. Who would have thought back then that 25 years later FolKWorld is still there, 79 issues later, now reviewing more than 100 CDs each time, with an international team of contributors (and multi-lingual content).

And doesn’t the folk scene today more than ever need any support it can get. After Covid and lockdowns, and with the current cost of living crisis, promoters and bands struggle to fully revive the folk and world music concert scene – stories of concerts and tours cancelled due to low ticket sales, and of concerts with only a couple of handfuls of people in the audience have become more common in recent months. On top of that, the scene – musicians and venues alike – have still to recover for not having been able to operate for the best part of two years at all.

If FolkWorld can contribute just a tiny bit to support the scene and our musicians in these difficult times, then it so much remains worth the effort.

A short version of the FolkWorld story

FolkWorld was started in response to the two German folk magazine at the time, Folk Michel and Folksblatt, merging, and us wanting to give some variety in the German folk magazine market. But not only that, we saw a gap out there in an English language magazine focussed on European folk music traditions – there were several publications focussed on Celtic and UK folk traditions, and there were publications focussed on world music, but none put the focus on folk music from all parts of Europe. Hence the idea was born to create a European folk music magazine online, published in two languages, English and German (with often different content in each language). In recent years, it is exciting that FolkWorld further embraced its multi-linguism, with regular features in a range of other European languagues, from Italian and Spanish, via Czech, Dutch and French, to Nordic languagues.

Alias Ron Kavana; Photo by The Mollis

As an online magazine, the financial risk is minimal, publication deadlines are not “hard” deadlines, and the readership can build up without too much effort – hence a perfect project for students to set up. Over the years, the magazine grew, and the effort to produce it became greater – including dealing with the ever increasing number of CDs being sent in for review (some of this is now replaced by digital copies – while saving on postage, it does add time and effort in accessing and downloading the review material). All contributors, and the editors/publishers, do their contributions on a voluntary and unpaid basis in their free time; FolkWorld has never taken a commercial line. In fact, the editorial team has to invest in the magazine, funding the online presence as well as (every increasing) postage to distribute review material to our contributors.

This all has made it hard to sustain over the years. Fortunately, when the founders, myself and my brother Christian, were not able any more to commit the time and effort to producing FolkWorld, Tom Keller came to the rescue – without him, I would not have thought FolkWorld would have survived. And of course, all other contributors to FolkWorld are essential to keep the magazine going too.

The Unthanks

In recent years, FolkWorld has, sadly, out-survived several folk music print magazine – with each in their own right having been real beacons for the music scene, whose demise would have been for a long time unimaginable. It is a sad loss that the UK lost its FRoots magazine and its Living Tradition – magazine sorely missed by the scene. The German magazine Folker disappeared only for a short while from the scene; fortunately with a new publisher it has now returned and hopefully can continue to balance its finances to keep going. All of these magazines, and the people who are doing all the hard work behind the scenes, have been heroes for what they have done; and while some of these magazine have disappeared, their teams should be proud of what they have done over the years for the scene.

Here’s to the future

I am looking back with some pride at the last 78 issues of FolkWorld, all still available as a huge archive of reviews and articles about the folk and world music scene. A huge thank you is due to Tom for having taken over the coordination of the magazine for many years, but also to all and every contributor to the magazine over the last 25 years. And thank you to all of you – all of you readers who hopefully made some new discoveries as well as finding out more about your favourite artists through FolkWorld – and all of the folk and world music artists, record companies and promoters who have shown that you value FolkWorld by contributing promotional material.

I don’t know what FolkWorld will be up to in the future – will it survive many more years, or will at some point the work just become too much to be done on a voluntary basis? However, I do hope that FolkWorld will keep going, and that you continue to value FolkWorld for what it is – a magazine created by folk enthusiasis, for the folk scene out there.

I should finish by encouraging all of you to go out to your local folk clubs and venues to support musicians and clubs, to go and buy their albums and other merchandise. The scene will only get through the current crisis and survive with your support.

What are your FolkWorld memories? How do you use FolkWorld? Any artists or bands that you are particularly grateful to have discovered through FolkWorld? And do promoters or artists have feedback on how FolkWorld has helped them? Please get in touch and let us know your FolkWorld stories?


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