has been involved in British filk since 1988, when he first discovered it, and also wrote and performed his first filk song. Since then, he has contributed in a variety of important ways to its propagation and continuation. He is an excellent songwriter and performer. He has won two British filk awards, one in 1994 for “Boy in a Room” (Best Serious Song) and one in 1998 for “Suddenly Eeyore” (Best Humorous Song).
From 1991 to 1993, he co-produced (with Robert Maughan and Smitty) the only British filkzine, “Filklore.” Although this only lasted 9 issues, it helped people share songs before the advent of online filk mailing lists and bulletin boards.
He ran “Minstrel’s Hall of Filk”, an electronic bulletin board and free Internet feed for filkers and fans in the UK, from 1991 to 1997, and has since continued running FILK_UK, the British filk mailing list.
In 1999, Minstrel instituted an annual award, the Filklore Award, for best lyrics posted on FILK_UK, which is given out at the British filkcon; this was motivated in part by his desire to encourage the posting of new songs. He also served on the committee for the filkcon VIbraphone, and co-founded the record label Filklore Music Productions/Partners in Rhyme which took on the task of producing the tape from that convention. Yet another part of the Filklore family of projects is Minstrel’s online music store. Minstrel is the only filk dealer in the UK with an online presence; he has even made arrangements to accept credit cards.
In summary, Minstrel has been contributing to the British filk community since the late 1980s by providing numerous ways for filkers to share lyrics and music, and doing just about everything possible to ensure that filkers keep making music together.
For these contributions to filk music and the filk community, Chris Malme is inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame this twenty-ninth day of March, two thousand and three.
Photo credit: The Magician