Taplas

Taplas is a folk music magazine which covers the genre in Wales and its border areas of England.

While firmly based in Wales and the borders, and running out of a head office in Cardiff, Taplas's focus includes folk, traditional, bluegrass, and world music.

Features are often commissioned if the subject is performing in the core area during the time scale of the magazine's shelf life, but not exclusively so. There is almost always some coverage of at least one Wales-based artist in each issue.

Each issue features news, in-depth features, reviews, listings and some comment. Since 2007 the magazine has also had a regular feature on traditional dance, On Your Feet, which profiles a traditional dance side or team within the core area of the magazine's coverage. The magazine is published in black and white, with a full colour cover. Extra colour pages are often added for the festival supplement edition, in April/May of each year.

Taplas has also published a series of cover-mount CDs, and runs a folk festival guide supplement in the April/May issue each year.

Taplas was founded in 1982 to replace the defunct South Wales Folk News publication. The first editor was Keith Hudson.

The magazine was initially quarterly, but eventually expanded to six issues a year and is published bi-monthly.

The magazine had a number of volunteer contributors, who submitted features and reviews to the publication. Much of the core writing (news stories, listings, and so on), and a good deal of the photography, was done by Keith Hudson. Design work was undertaken by Jed Williams from 1988 onwards.

The magazine also had an editorial board, whose membership was fixed, to determine the direction the publication would take.

Lucy Whitfield, a Taplas contributor from 1999 onwards, took over design duties for the magazine from November 2003 after the sudden death of Jed Williams from a heart attack.

Due to Keith Hudson's declining health over the next few years the editorial board felt that a new editor was needed. Lucy Whitfield was voted into that role during 2007, and took up the reigns in November of that year.

The magazine is now run by a team of three, with Lucy Whitfield as editor, long term contributor Mick Tems (formerly of Calennig) as deputy editor, and ex-editor Keith Hudson as reviews editor. All contributions and staffing roles are still voluntary.

Taplas actively supports both the BBC Young Folk Award and the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, sending a representative to both events, and providing coverage afterwards. The magazine also attends many folk festivals throughout the summer months, and will often provide pictorial coverage of the events.

...
Wikipedia