‘Folk Unlocked’ Festival Unlocks Pandemic Aid For Folk Musicians

Many articles covering the cessation of live music performance upon the COVID-19 pandemic featured photos of empty concert halls, high-capacity areas with 10,000 folded seats. There were fewer photos of people’s living rooms, or wooden stages affixed to the back of a country bar. These smaller venues are where most music performances across the world occur. And these venues are where folk musicians thrive. 

“A folk musician doesn’t need very much,” says Jimbo Mathus, an American musician from Mississippi. “They just need their music and their health. They don’t need a microphone, they don’t need a stage. It’s kind of taking it back to the old days: you have a man with a guitar, and you need something to lift your spirits. Nothing else matters.”

Mathus is 53 years old. He has been playing folk music for 30 years. In a typical year, he plays music professionally at least 230 days a year. Like many of his peers, his income stream evaporated when the pandemic hit. He applied for federal unemployment. He doesn’t have health insurance, so it’s unsafe for him to take frontline jobs, but he turned to them, anyway. “Luckily, I have a folk musician’s lifestyle,” he chuckles. “You live humbly, you live within your means, you take the good and the bad.” 

Mathus’s plight is not unique. A global cohort of musicians accustomed to intimate, in-person interaction have faced financial tumult. This is why Folk Alliance International, a non-profit organization for folk musicians and other members of the folk industry, is presenting Folk Unlocked, a virtual music festival. The festival, which will take place form Feb. 22–26, will “unlock” the FAI’s new Village Fund, a collection of grants to folk music workers and musicians. 

In order to increase accessibility, the festival is pay-what-you-can, though a minimum $25 contribution to the Village Fund is recommended. Attendees will have access to 800 hours of music — featuring artists like Mathus, Los Lobos, and Cedric Burnside, among many others — and a simultaneous virtual conference. 

Aengus Finnan, the FAI’s executive director, began discussing plans for a fund in May 2020, soon after it became obvious that live performers would face lasting economic impacts. In order to understand their community’s needs, they surveyed their artist membership. Approximately 46% of all artists indicated that, in a normal year, 75–100% of their income came from their music career. And 71% of all respondents cited pandemic-related income loss as a major stressor. Respondents reported that they made up for the loss by taking on debt, tapping into their savings, and asking friends for financial support. Nearly a third of respondents said that they changed their careers from music, entirely. 

On top of the current economic issues musicians across genres face, folk musicians often contend with a public perception issue. Some music listeners assume that “folk” is a dated genre, a term only applicable to a ballad or a tune, but many artists across the world, working in various traditions, identify as folk artists. 

According to Finnan, this perception has left folk artists in a “suspended state,” without a single industry city to cleave to. “The folk community base is a broad network of little clubs and festival fields and living-rooms and volunteers in every small town around the world, and while that is a beautiful thing, it’s hard to gather up that support in a consolidated way and distribute it to a community in need,” he says. 

The Alliance hopes to raise $100,000, to be distributed in 20 $500 grants. Because folk musicians across the globe are in need of funding, Finnan said the initial fund may deplete fairly quickly. But Folk Unlocked is just the beginning; Folk Alliance’s fundraising attempts will be ongoing, even after the pandemic, in order to provide relief during future periods of financial hardship. 

Any member of Folk Alliance International, or any attendee of any FAI event in Canada, the U.S., Ireland, Australia and Sweden are eligible to apply for one of the $500 grants. Finnan understands the shortcomings of some public funding projects — need will always outweigh an organization’s ability to provide support. “When people are in need and venerable by revealing that need, reactions can be raw and defensive,” he says. “It’s heartbreaking, even as the agency providing support.” 

“For that reason, I’m hoping the millions of folk music fans — which includes Americana, blues, bluegrass, Celtic, old-time, global roots, traditional, singer-songwriters, and more — all consider giving a single dollar each,” Finnan says. “That would put millions in the fund and direct support into the hands of the artists who represent the genre they love.”