Broadside (magazine)

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Broadside magazine was a small mimeographed publication founded in 1962 by Agnes "Sis" Cunningham and her husband, Gordon Friesen. Hugely influential in the folk-revival, it was often controversial. Issues of what is folk music, what is folk rock, and who is folk were roundly discussed and debated. At the same time, Broadside nurtured and promoted important singers of the era.

The mimeograph machine used to produce the magazine had been discarded by the American Labor Party.^[1] The mixture of hand-drawn musical notation, typewriter text, and the occasional hand-drawn illustration or photocopied news story anticipated a look that would be more common in zines 20 years later.

By the end of the 1970s, Broadside had essentially ceased publication.

Many of the songs recorded for Broadside over its lifetime were released in 2000 as The Best of Broadside as a 5-CD boxed set. The many Broadside albums originally released by Folkways are now available through Smithsonian Folkways here: https://folkways.si.edu/search?query=broadside

The Broadside archives, including all the reel-to-reel tapes of music (many of which have been digitized) are housed at the University of Carolina (see External links below). Also, a complete archive of all the magazines can be found here: https://singout.org/broadside/