In some regards folk music is very healthy. Many people can't get enough Riverdance; Irish pubs proliferate all over Europe and beyond; there's a session just about everywhere in the States. Bluegrass continues to be very popular, etc.

When I look at the audience for what Americans and Brits would call [generic] Folk Music, I get shivers. Everyone I see is my age (not especially young) or older. Where are the kids?

I don't mean your kids or my kids - who would be used to hearing folk music in the house - but other people's kids! Someone we know professes to being part of the Next Generation; that person is 33!

Give me stories about groups of teenagers singing sea shanties, doing the Woody-Cisco-Sonny thing or committing Harry Cox's repetoire to memory and I will be heartened for sure. However, the median age group for folk music enthusiasts is rising by about 11 months every year.

As the sooner-than-we-think Mantle Passers, what are we doing wrong or, rather, what can we do better to make the music of our lives and the lives of singers long since buried more appealing to younger folk?

Any thoughts?

All the best,
Dan Milner