Music has the power to distract us from crises. The afternoon of this show, as I worried about quarterly tax payments and set about responding to the never-ending tide of e-mail, I inserted Alison Krauss & Union Station’s outstanding 1997 […]
It seems like a long time ago, but I can remember it vividly: the righteous sense of outrage I felt after learning that Husker Du’s Bob Mould had written most of his band’s material on little more than an acoustic […]
Back from an exhausting few days of industry schmoozing in Austin at the South by Southwest Festival, Marah returned to the city of the Mummers for their “official” Kids in Philly CD release party. Marah seemed as if they were […]
Mountains contained a wide, gray sky; gunshots echoed faintly from the shooting range down the road; the wind sang atonally, unwelcomely, through the microphones. But the several hundred people who camped out, and the handful more who were able to […]
Depending on your outlook, the small theatre behind John Cleere’s pub is half full or half empty for tonight’s show. However, in a venue this snug, there are no wide open spaces in the crowd to dampen the atmosphere. In […]
“Can I get a page number?!” bellowed David Rawlings with all the sweaty fervor of a Pentecostal preacher at a tent revival. “128!” barked a man from the bar. Rawlings obediently opened the Bob Dylan songbook, thumbed to that page, […]
The first Honky Tonk-A-Rama, held in February 1996, was a storm-ravaged affair, with the bad weather outside leading to some interesting lineups — John Howie and Ryan Adams sat in on drums and bass, respectively, for Jolene’s snowbound rhythm section […]
Almost from the day we began publishing this magazine I have patiently had to explain that, no, No Depression was not an Americana publication. Americana is principally known as a radio format, a chart in the Gavin trade magazine, and […]
It happens all the time. You read an article in a music magazine, scratch your head and go, “Wait a minute, what does this have to do with the singer or record I thought I was reading about? This says […]
Back about 30 years ago, when I was first really immersing myself in country music, I bought a 78rpm record of singer Sue Thompson, and promptly fell in love — not with Thompson, though she was a fine singer, but […]
