Running a radio show and a local club, I see a line drawn in the sand.   I've been to several festivals this summer - NJ Folk Fest, Mystic Sea Music Fest, Old Songs, and Falcon Ridge - and I've seen some interesting changes.   With the exception of Falcon Ridge, the audience is getting older. I'm 51 and at most festivals I feel like a kid.   Falcon Ridge is an exception, an audience of twenty and thrity somethings that are enjoying singer-songwriters - a contemporary form of folk music.

My opinion is that traditional folk music has been promoted and marketed in the same fashion since the 1960's. It has operated as "church basement" production with little reason to change with the times. The hard core traditionalists scare off a younger audience with the feeling that they will need to turn in a term paper at the end of the evening and justify their knowledge of the music. I honestly see a snobbery effect that is a huge turnoff.

Even singer-songwriters are used to operating out of the trunk of their car, living hand to mouth, and their scene does not attract media attention - except when someone with talent manages to create something a bit different - such as an Ani DiFranco or Shawn Colvin. These are artists who are stepping out of the old mold and creating something new.

I think the audiences are there - but they do not know it!! They have yet to be recognized and counted.   As soon as someone can figure out how to fight the negative stereotypes that have built up over the decades, they will return - looking much younger.