Song Critique and Career Coaching from World Music's Scene - Tom Frouge

Tom Frouge brings the World Music market to Music Xray.

In retrospect, Tom Frouge began his music career one Sunday night in 1964 in front of the television watching the Ed Sullivan show. He began his music business career in 1988 as a disc jockey at free-form radio station WPKN-FM in Bridgeport, CT, where he also served as music director for eight years. During his tenure at the station, Frouge began working at Green Linnet Records where he served as Director of National Promotion for five years. He also oversaw the label's Red Bird imprint, which specialized in American Roots music. In 1998 Tom joined Putumayo World Music as Senior VP of Promotion/Artist Label Manager. In addition to his duties of overseeing the bi-coastal publicity and promotion team for the company, he was responsible for helping create and heading the Putumayo Artists label in Berkeley, CA. Artists he was instrumental in bringing to the label include acclaimed Malian musician Habib Koite, Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi, England's Equation and the legendary South African diva Miriam Makeba.

Frouge oversaw Putumayo-branded tours, concerts and events. Frouge also produced and was responsible for helping to script the nationally syndicated radio program The Putumayo World Music Hour heard on over 120 stations. In September of 2000, Frouge came to Triloka Records as Senior Vice President of Marketing. He was responsible for designing and implementing marketing plans as well as creating strate- gic marketing opportunities for the label. He also served as direct liaison for all of Triloka's distribution and retail needs. On the A&R (Artist&Repertoire) side he brought the renowned Madagascar Afro-Pop band Tarika to the label, Moroccan music master Hassan Hakmoun, the critically acclaimed nuevo-cumbia act Charanga Cakewalk, Juno-award winning Indian gazal singer Kiran Ahluwalia, world-dance pioneers Transglobal Underground and Uganda's celebrated multi-instrumentalist/composer/singer Samite. He served as producer and executive producer on a number of the label's artist releases and lifestyle compilations including the Tarika 10-year retrospective Beasts, Ghosts&Dancing With History, Charanga Cakewalk's Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge, and various artist releases Earth N Bass and Hookah Café.

Tom also produced and directed music videos for the company. In June of 2001, Tom was made a partner in Triloka Records/Karuna Music. In November 2003 the label was sold to Artemis Records and Tom served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Triloka Records. Since September of 2002 Tom has served as Vice President on the Board of Directors for American Roots Publishing, Inc., (ARP) a non-profit publishing company which seeks to bridge American roots music, literature and art while helping to preserve America's unique cultural treasures and whose first projects included the Grammy® award-winning CD Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs Of Stephen Foster, featuring tracks from Mavis Staples, Alison Kraus, Raul Malo, John Prine, Michelle Shocked, Roger McGuinn, Suzy Bogus, Alvin Youngblood Hart, David Ball and 9 others, a tribute to legendary American songwriter Kris Kristofferson, The Pilgrim: A Cele- bration Of Kris Kristofferson, which was co-executive produced by Tom, featured performances from Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Gretchen Wilson, Rodney Crowell, Roseanne Cash, Brian McKnight, Marta Gómez, Patty Griffin&Charanga Cakewalk, Shooter Jennings, Jill Sobule&Lloyd Cole.

In 2005 Tom co-founded ¡Globalquerque! a world music and culture festival featuring acts from around the globe, presented on three stages over two days, which he co-produces and co-curates. The 2005&2006 editions of the festival were selected as official City of Albuquerque Tricentennial Events and since its inception the festival has been ranked a Tier One Destination Event by the Albuquerque Convention&Visitors Bureau (ACVB) . Tom also began Avokado Artists Management and Consulting, a company that specializes in a variety of independent music-related services including artist management, marketing & promotion, general label consultation and music supervision.

His clients have won or received nominations for multiple Grammy® awards. From 2005 until July 2007, Tom was Music Director and Stream Host of Radioio World, the world music channel on Radioio.com, an Internet radio provider. He was responsible for all the channel's programming and built the stream's entire library. In August of 2007 he moved over to Slacker.com where he currently programs both the World Music and New Age channels. Since September of 2005 Tom has served as the Music Liaison of the City of Albuquerque's Economic Development Department Music Office. His activities have included founding and producing the monthly Albuquerque Songwriter's Series, sponsoring a monthly Music business seminar series produced by the Albuquerque Music Association as well as giving Albuquerque's music industry and performers a presence at SXSW and other national and international music forums. In December of 2006 Tom was asked to produce the Awards Show for the 2007 Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN.

Tom co-founded a new company in 2007, Masterscape, a pre-cleared music master catalogue for film, television, games, etc. and serves as Partner, Creative Content. The Masterscape catalogue boasts a wide range of music across all genres. The company also represents composers for film and television including Michael Ramos, Gatis Gaujenieks, Rahim AlHaj, Jeff Mettling and many others. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a BA in Political Science, Tom is a long- time political and environmental activist, musician and songwriter and has been involved in numerous bands and many music and politics-related endeavors throughout his life.

He currently serves on the steering committee of the NM Coalition to Repeal The Death Penalty. For five years he directed and co-produced the political talk show Up Front seen on Boston's Cablevision. He has served since its inception on the Board of Directors of the North American World Music Coalition. He has been a consultant on World Music for MUBU.com and a business and marketing consultant for Little Dog Records, an independent American roots music label in Burbank, CA owned by Grammy® award-winning producer Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam, Michele Shocked), - where he has also compiled the collection entitled The Gospel According To Little Dog, independent Nashville-based label Dualtone Records, Nashville marketing and management company Thirty Tigers (formerly Emergent Marketing) and The North American Folk Alliance.

Tom has participated by invitation in UK publication fRoots (formerly Folk Roots) magazine's annual Critics Poll, the results of which are now weighed as part of the BBC Music Awards. He has served on and moderated numerous panels on Promotion, Marketing and A & R at conferences around the world including WOMEX, South By Southwest, CMJ, Encuentro de las Artes Escénicas, Gavin Radio Convention, Folk Alliance, Americana Music Association and The Association For Independent Music and has written articles on World and American Roots music for various publications including Gavin, Billboard.com, The Fairfield County Advocate and others. A songwriter and producer, In his spare time and when the mood strikes, Tom fronts the alt-country/punk /folk/rock/whatever band The Porch Sitters.