Opinion

Opinion

Read and share Reid Jamieson’s #Fanifesto on how to support ...

There is good news, and there is bad news. The bad news Making music is no longer sustainable. And there is little we as artists can do about it. Here is the hard truth as we see it: in 2023, ...
Opinion

Presley Overgoor reflects on the new Neil Young official bootlegs

In early 1972, Neil Young was in a record store on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles looking for a Bob Dylan album. While there, he found a bootleg LP of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and took this to the ...
Opinion

We need to talk about the Estelle Klein Award

We’re getting toward the time of the year when Folk Music Ontario typically puts out a call for nominees for the Estelle Klein Award – and before it does that, I hope we can have a conversation. FMO needs to ...
Opinion

Heather’s 2021 holiday love letter to the Roots Music Canada ...

As I write this, it feels as though we’re capping off a very sobering holiday season. Like you, perhaps, I went into this fall thinking we were seeing the end of COVID-related restrictions – that vaccines would deliver us from ...
Opinion

Songs for the Revolution: climate call, musical response

There’s no denying it: we are living in the midst of a global climate emergency. Yet we go on with our daily lives. Where to start? What would be most effective? And how can we have a sense of hope ...
Opinion

Songs for the Revolution: Strengthening our democracy

I am excited to begin this year with a new monthly column entitled “Songs for the Revolution.”  Some of the topics I’ll be exploring are poverty, racism, equity, social justice, religion, immigration, culture and politics. I’ll look to explore them ...
Opinion

Why streaming concerts should never end – even when social ...

It couldn’t have been a week from that first big wave of COVID-19 cancellations that musicians – the great innovators and adapters that they are – began taking to Facebook to perform online.  At first, they were often impromptu sessions, ...
Opinion

Love and art at the edge of apocalypse

Ever since Grade Seven social studies class, I’ve been walking around waiting for a piano to drop on my head. I remember going home to my parents and asking why they’d never told me about the prospect of a nuclear ...
Opinion

We’re Back!

Folks, it’s Gordy the Moose here.  As I write this, there’s a bright sun shining over moose country, and I’m getting a little misty thinking about what we’re doing here today. Folks, Roots Music Canada is back. I’m not going ...
Opinion

How do we learn folk music? Part II

In the last article, I tried to avoid answering the question of whether written music is still relevant in folk music by posing two more questions, “What motivates one to learn to play or sing folk music?” and, “How do ...