This is fascinating whether or not you are a "deadhead"- "Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead" by Joshua Green in this month's Atlantic shows how revolutionary and progressive these hippies really were. Finally, a little respect for some incredible business acumen!!! 

..... the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created “customer value,” promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning. 

The band pioneered music-biz concepts that have become standard operating procedure for the "modern musician" running his or her own micro-business. The Dead discovered that the best way to raise demand for your product is to give it away, not to hoard it. This is pretty advanced thinking, here: 

"The connection between the Internet and the Dead’s business model was made 15 years ago by the band’s lyricist, John Perry Barlow, who became an Internet guru. Writing in Wired in 1994, Barlow explained to me: “What people today are beginning to realize is what became obvious to us back then—the important correlation is the one between familiarity and value, not scarcity and value. 

Woah- I wish I'd of said that, expecially in 1994, that's "listening to the technology" in a big way. efolkMusic wasn't too far behind, though- we started offering free MP3s in 1999. It's a hell of a lot easier to download and play them these days, glad ya'll have caught up with us. -cf

As the music business has "deconstructed" over the past ten years, artists have had to find new ways to get heard; here are a coupleof promotional services available to our artists:

• "EPK" distribution - We'll send an email  invitation to view your "electronic press kit" to over 500 folk radio DJs and folk festival producers. We'll point them to your efolkMusic artist page, website, mySpace page, etc. where they can learn more about you. all for less than 10 cents per contact. 
• Folk Radio CD Distribution - We'll send your CD to 50 or 100 stations that feature folk and singer/songwriter shows, along with a letter of recommendation and your "one sheet", for just $200 (the "hot 50" package).

Coming from the deep roots of the Chicago folk scene, Birdy is Bianca (Wesolowski) Bevard, Sharon (Brunot) Speziale and Meg Thomas, and they've recently released a lovely album, "Journey Home". Mark Dvorak, singer/songwriter and instructor at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music extols their virtues quite well: "Bianca, Sharon and Meg have struck a most fortunate chord. Their voices and their message, are clear and beautiful."

John Morrison from Scotland plays an all embracing release with his first album. His songs cover many aspects of life on the road and the pains and gains of living this wonderful life- listen to tracks on his artist page.