As part of our ongoing efforts to forge connections and build community for performers, presenters and fans of folk, roots, singer-songwriter and other acoustic music styles, we have launched an AcousticMusicScene.com Group on LinkedIn. A professionally-oriented online social network, LinkedIn currently has more than 30-million members around the world. The new AcousticMusicScene.com Group supplements our online publication by providing you with opportunities to connect with others who share your musical interests, view rich professional profiles from AcousticMusicScene.com Group members, and exchange ideas and information via a discussion forum on LinkedIn. {To read this posting in its entirety, click on the headline.]

The tango is a dance that originated in Argentina. It is also the name of the latest album by SONiA & disappear fear and represents their “dance with the world.” Featuring 13 songs sung in Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and English, Tango has a very different aural feel from smoky-voiced, Baltimore-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sonia Rutstein’s previous recordings, both solo and with disappear fear. Its Latin and Middle Eastern rhythms and instrumentation — featuring the indigenous sounds of djembes, tin whistles, violins and acoustic guitars — punctuate and lend new textures to her impassioned music. Included are several songs whose folk-rock melodies will be familiar to those who have come to know and love SONiA’s music over the past 20 years. [To read the entire article, click on the headline].

Sensing a void and eager to help foster a spirit of community, “a place to discuss issues related to living on the contemporary folk scene,” singer-songwriter Erik Balkey launched a new listserv through Yahoo Groups earlier this spring. To date, more than 160 people have signed up for free memberships in LivingFolk, which Balkey describes as “a community of kindred folk who share a commitment to, and are personally and spiritually invested in, the shaping of an evolving folk scene for today [To read the entire article, click on the headline].

The once venerable Kutsher’s Resort and Country Club in New York’s Catskill Mountains may have seen better days during the Borscht Belt era when top comedians did their schtick there. But, despite some wear and tear, over the Veterans’ Day weekend, this Monticello mainstay was an acoustic nirvana for nearly 700 folk performers, presenters, promoters and folk DJs who converged there for the 12th annual Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) Conference.... [ click title above for full article ]