In Print and In Person: Songlines Publisher James Anderson-Hanney on Championing Global Sound
James Anderson-Hanney is the Publisher of Songlines magazine, a print publication dedicated to ‘The Best Music from Around the World’. With a background spanning visual arts, advertising, and music journalism, James has carved a career that blends cultural curiosity with entrepreneurial spirit. British Underground spoke to James the enduring power of music to transcend borders and championing global music through editorial and strategic partnerships.
James Anderson-Hanney receiving the Lifetime Achievement award on behalf of Songlines at the 2025 International Folk Alliance Awards
Hi James, What part of your role as publisher are people surprised to hear you do?
I think festival-goers are surprised when they meet me (or the editor/assistant editor) at a Songlines stand in a muddy field selling them a subscription - Songlines is like a small but passionate world music family.
As well as festivals, you attend conferences like WOMEX and Folk Alliance International - why are industry gatherings important for your work?
WOMEX brings together an industry that is driven by passion more than money and is more musically diverse than any other music expo in the world. In such an environment, meeting in person is essential to building trust and finding the areas of common interest that such global partnerships and disparate
musical styles require. When you’re in a business because you love it, you want to work with others that share your passion and commitment, how better to discover this than by listening, discussing, dancing, eating and drinking together?!
Celebrating the 2024 WOMEX conference at the great city of Manchester, Songlines Magazine, British Underground and Arts Council England published Routes, the free 52-page printed guidebook highlighting England’s best festivals, venues and expos. Thinking about Routes, how is the work you do instrumental in the amplification of music, music platforms and music scenes?
Songlines allows its readers to discover music that they wouldn’t have heard elsewhere and, consequently, helps this music to survive and thrive. It connects a geographically-dispersed and stylistically-diverse community under a world music banner, and is probably the only surviving world music magazine left on the planet- which is both a privileged and precarious position. We are fortunate to have a dedicated audience of the musically broad-minded and lots of opportunities to reach new audiences who are looking to discover the world through music.
Routes is a natural extension of that for music professionals, by making essential information available to this community’s global community it will help a more diverse range of music reach more people, in more parts of the UK and Ireland, with greater economic viability for all involved.
“I love music’s ability to make us feel and share universal emotions with others, transcending boundaries of time, geography, language and culture.”
What did you wish you knew about music and magazine publishing before that you now know?
I wish I’d known how the shift from physical to digital would change the landscape of music and magazine publishing. However, despite a challenging transition, the prospects for world music to reach (and unite) a geographically, linguistically and culturally disparate audience are better than ever.
How do you balance a career and family life? Can you give us any tips?
I’m lucky to be able to integrate the two to some degree- my kids love festivals and music so there is always some family member that is happy to join me in listening or dancing to music.
Who are your top 3 'ones to watch’ right now?
World music is really the least genre-like ‘genre’ that exists- each issue we struggle to choose our ‘Top of the World’ albums and whittling it down to even to 10 feels painfully under representative. I’m going to have to exercise my right to silence on this one!
What’s coming up for Songlines 2025?
We’re a small team so, much like the advice I’d give artists, I’m hoping to find and extend our network of partners. I’d like to create more mutually-beneficial
Routes, the free 52-page printed guidebook created in partnership with Songlines Magazine, British Underground and Arts Council England. Cover by Arinjoy Sen.
relationships with venues and festivals in the UK that allow them to programme more world music because we have helped create the audience to make those gigs viable. I’d also like to expand our audience in North America, where a relatively huge market of world music fans have no single source to discover and read about the music we cover.
