Brown Paper Publicity aims to unearth roots music, preserve its traditions, and explore its horizons by revealing both established and emerging artists to new audiences across Canada.
Operated entirely by
Allison Brown, Brown Paper Publicity celebrates and helps develop established and emerging touring artists working in the local, regional and national independent music industry in Canada by raising artist profile through traditional and non-traditional media outlets. Brown Paper focuses on musicians working in the singer-songwriter, folk & traditional, roots, country and blues formats, but also considers musicians working in ‘indie rock’ bands, jazz, world, and other genres as potential clients.
Brown Paper also generates freelance media content on radio and in print media based on independent artist promotion across all genres with a focus on artists touring through or based from the
Windsor/Essex area. Brown Paper also hosts occasional Windsor concerts in a variety of venues, bringing touring artists to an underdeveloped community for Canadian music in the roots format, fulfilling the mission statement to bring a wider audience to independent music both live and recorded; locally, regionally, and nationally.
~ About Allison ~
As an independent touring musician for the last decade, Allison has developed relationships with both members of the local, regional and national media, as well as with artists like herself working in the folk-roots format. Allison’s dedicated, organized and unique approach to self-promotion has earned her an outstanding reputation within the industry and has enabled her to develop an extensive network of contacts and colleagues across the country. Allison has orchestrated a myriad of promotional campaigns for national tours as lengthy as two months, all of which she has booked and managed personally. She
self-released two highly acclaimed recordings, earning
reviews in international publications
“No Depression” and
“Sing Out” magazines, and well as in several community newspapers and online publications. The
Ontario Arts Council provided support funding for Allison’s most recent tour as a successful applicant to the Ontario Touring Program.
After over seven years of hosting “For The Folk” on
CHRW Radio in London, Ontario, Allison’s dedication to campus/community radio continues with her role as host of “Border City Roots” on
CJAM 99.1fm in Windsor. "Border City Roots" won a Jammy Award for best Folk/Roots program in 2012. Allison presented weekly on-air musician interviews as part of
CBC Windsor’s “Early Shift” program for over 8 months and continues to contribute to local CBC programming. Allison is also a music columnist writing for Metroland Media’s
OurWindsor.ca and several of her insightful reviews and features have been published on
RootsMusic.ca and
Earshot Online. Allison was on the jury panel judging the Roots/Traditional Solo album category for the 2010 Juno Awards and has previously acted on the selection panel for the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
Allison also worked for several years at
Grooves Records where she developed a keen ground-level knowledge of trends in the industry while discovering music beneath the mainstream radar, bringing it to a larger audience.
Allison’s experience with campus, community and public radio as well as online publications has offered her a perspective on what media outlets require from publicists, and how to best achieve airplay, interviews and features for artists.
Allison’s key strength as a publicist and promoter of Canadian independent folk/roots music is her personal connection to the folk-roots community as a performer, supporter, and presenter matched with her knack for networking and connecting the right people to each other. Her dedication to broadening the demographic market for folk-roots music, maintaining roots music traditions while expanding its horizons, and her unrelenting support of its exceptional emerging artists marks her an outstanding artist representative to members of the media and the public. Allison’s friendly invitations entice the listener, and her insightful style allows the music to speak for itself; an approach attractive to both the media, and the client.
