Folk Alliance International

And

if I hadn't gone to that folk alliance, it wouldn't have happened.

I had no idea how I was gonna make it.

I don't

France! We're going to France! It's going to be great.

Where you've performed the past two years, and this year you are taking it over, working on a new full-length record coming in 2027.

I met Sarah in 2016 at Folk Alliance.

That was a decade ago.

You want to see that people have played some the more reputable local showcases.

Like if someone's played Folk Canada and they apply to Folk Alliance International, then I'm like, okay, I see the, there's a very clear growth strategy here.

And that is the next logical step is to go into the next kind of largest folk conference.

Yeah.

Exactly, JB, and in addition to all that, for the last nine years she's done the tireless work of making sure Memphis is represented at a Nashville Americana Fest.

Not just that, I mean, Folk Alliance International.

We've traveled to a lot of different cities.

I know that, uh, along with Kansas City and New Orleans and Montreal, uh, she's taken some of these incredible showcases to some far corners of the, the soul sphere, I'll go ahead and call it that.

And I was just, I was like, okay.

So I tried, I went to Folk Alliance.

I thought maybe I'm a folk artist.

Major labels had all turned me down or refused to meet with me in the first place.

And so I thought maybe I'm folky.

I went to the Folk Alliance thing and I was like, I'm more mainstream than these people.

I mean, golly.

And

But I wanted to ask, speaking of middle age, like, what do you think your fan base is? And it's, you know, on TikTok.

For a while, like sea shanties were super in, or I met a band at Folk Alliance that had gone like super viral doing this like very niche, like choral singing, old timey.

I don't even know.

It wasn't for me, but I wish them well.

And I've been searching for when that happened.

One of the things I read was that you guys went to IBMA and went to Folk Alliance and you started, even like at IBMA, started seeing like, okay, this is a world I can be in.

This is a business, this is something.

Right? Yeah, I mean, it all goes way back to even elementary school, you know.