On April 14, 1891, a Chicago businessman named Mortimer Birdsul Mills was granted a patent for a major improvement in what was then called a coin-actuated vending apparatus. It gave consumers of cigars the opportunity to select which one of […]
Steve Earle is back with his 20th studio album, Ghosts of West Virginia. The 10-song album is based on the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed 29 miners in 2010, and the first single, “Devil Put the Coal […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is an excerpt from a story in our Summer 2018 print issue “(im)migration” You can read the whole story — and much more — in that issue, here. And please consider supporting No Depression with a subscription for more roots music journalism, […]
Sierra Hull has covered a lot of ground in her 28 years: a Grand Ole Opry appearance when she was 10, Carnegie Hall at 12, countless bluegrass festival jam circles and stages, college, world tours, IBMA awards and a Grammy […]
“Like a box of chocolates.” That was Raul Malo’s reply to Lucinda Williams when she remarked that the songwriters on stage for the final guitar pull on the 2020 Outlaw Country Cruise made “a good combination up here,” reports our […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is an excerpt from a story in our Spring 2020 print issue “Live and In Person.” You can read the whole story — and much more — in that issue, here. And please consider supporting No Depression with a subscription for more […]
When I first began working in the mailroom of a record distributor back in the early ’70s, one of the perks of the job was going backstage either before or after a concert. Documented in films such as Spinal Tap […]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Sarah Harmer is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for February. Her new album, Are You Gone, her first in 10 years, is out today. Read our feature story about Harmer here. Mid-February means long johns and bundles of […]
In a 1979 essay, “Of the Sorrow Songs: The Cross of Redemption,” James Baldwin challenges a pernicious view that separates music — he’s writing about jazz in this essay — from its cultural context and its social roots. It’s all […]
For as long as there has been work to do, there have been people singing while they do it. Collaborative tasks, in particular, seem to lend themselves to song. These songs do more than just help pass the time; they […]
