The Mast Head
RootsWorld / Hollow Ear
Box 1285
New Haven CT 06505
www.rootsworld.com and www.hear.com
RootsWorld and Hollow Ear are published continually, only on the WWW. We are NOT a record label, not a retailer. We have nothing to sell except information and our own personal (biased) opinions. We do accept advertising, and we encourage individuals to subscribe in order to support our efforts.
If you would like to make a submission for review, do so after reading the FAQ.
So who are these people? Why should you read what they have to say?
The Staff
- Cliff Furnald: editor, publisher of RootsWorld and Hollow Ear
Founded RootsWorld in 1993. Produces Radio Planet Three at WPKN-FM in Bridgeport, CT and has contributed to fRoots, Dirty Linen, CMJ and many other publications. If this isn't enough, there's more.
- Michael Stone: contributing editor
Michael hosts Jazz Worldwide on WWFM 89.1–HD2 and jazzon2.org. He contributes to fRoots and NatGeo Music, and is executive director of the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University. With Pedro Meira Monteiro, Stone’s current project is “Cangoma Calling: Spirits and Rhythms of Freedom in Brazilian Jongo Slavery Songs,” a volume based on historian Stanley Stein’s 1948–49 field recordings of former Brazilian slaves singing jongo work songs and signifying chants.
- Melanie Bodin: wrangler of language and form
Primary Contributors
- Lee Blackstone is a radio producer and also a contributor to Dirty Linen.
- George De Stefano is a New York City-based critic and author who writes mainly about culture, politics, and ethnicity. His book, An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America (Faber and Faber, 2006) explores pop culture images of Italian and Italian American organized crime, from the silent film era to the present.
- Greg Harness holds degrees in music theory, history, and management. He lives in the rural American West where his barn is much bigger than his house.
- Louis Gibson is an Oxford educated professor of sinusology on his native island of Watoo in the far-western south Pacific. In addition to his research into the nasal sounds of languages, he also plays the cabloo and translates the local poetry into iambic pentameter in his spare time.
- Nondas Kitsos is a Greek preservationist looking for ways to transcribe the "gamma" sound in English.
- Peggy Latkovich is a freelance writer and world music aficionada.
- Marty Lipp writes a monthly column on world music for Newsday (NY). As a freelancer, he has contributed to Global Rhythm, The Beat, Details, the New York Times and the Washington Post. As a father, he is currently trying to brainwash his 18-month-old son into loving Brazilian and Irish music.
- Bill Nevins is a poet, teacher and rabblerouser in New Mexico. He is also a New Mexico Music Commissioner, appointed in 2005 by Governor Bill Richardson
- Tom Orr
- Philip Palmer is an English freelance music writer, saxophonist and translator based in Krakow. He has contributed articles to Jazzwise, focusing on the music scene in Poland.
- Stacy Phillips is a player of fiddle and dobro. He has written numerous books about the instruments.
- Warren Senders is a musician (including the Anti-Gravity ensemble), classical Indian vocalist and life-long student of Indian musical culture
Inactive or occasional contributors:
- David Cox is a writer, editor, and activist living in Ontario, Canada. David co-organized the Quarter Moon Coffee House in Bloomfield, Ont., and he also contributes to rambles.net.
- Philly Markowitz is a Canadian world music broadcaster and mother of 2 free-range kids who has recently taken up the accordion.
- Staffan Jonsson is a young fiddler from Sweden who is turning into a Norwegian hardangerfiddler.
- Eric Iverson is a critic and visual designer in St Paul/Minneapolis.
- Helene Dunbar is a regular contributor to Irish Music Magazine.
- Jamie O'Brien
- Joe Grossman is joe grossman.
- Christina Roden is a writer, publicist, producer and marketing consultant specializing in world and classical music. She lives in New York City.
- Opiyo Oloyo is originally from Uganda. He is a radio producer and school teacher in Toronto.
- Graeme Counsel is an ethnomusicologist and host of Radio Africa in Melbourne, Australia
- Jennifer Byrne has spent time studying music in both Mozambique and Ghana. Her main area of interest is tufo singing from northern Mozambique. Born in Ireland, she now lives in London.
- Dave Dalle, a music graduate and pianist, has been hosting a folk and classical radio program for over five years in Ottawa.
- Sophie Parkes is an English student from England who says she's "fiddling mad." She also is a regular contributor to Fiddle On, the UK's only specialist fiddle publication.
- Steve Taylor is an ex-geologist and avant garde cartoonist who throat-sings.
- Peter Evan was born on an island in Lake Superior and now lives on a much warmer one in the Pacific. He is
a world traveler, medieval historian, freelance writer, and sanshin player.
- Michal Shapiro is a painter, designer, recording artist and producer. She is currently a music programmer for Link TV.
- Tracy M. Rogers is the editor of The Aurora Review, a poet, photographer, and freelance music reviewer. She likes jazz music, crocheting and drinking green tea.
- Renzo Pognant divides his musical tastes between jazz, minimalism and Indian music.
In his free time runs a record label and organizes live performances in Italy.
- Craig Tower is an Afrophilic vegan cyclist currently studying the anthropology of local radio in Mali at Northwestern University.
- Jose Ortega "Sitoh" is a photographer from Barcelona, Spain.