Pokey LaFarge displays such easy grace when he sings that it’s tempting to consider him a supplier of light entertainment. Don’t believe it. The stirring, deceptively fraught Rhumba Country presents vivid vignettes of restless hearts gripped by desire and loneliness, […]
Pokey LaFarge is a workhorse, nine albums and a global pandemic in. In the Blossom of Their Shade comes right on the heels of 2020’s excellent Rock Bottom Rhapsody (ND interview), a record that signaled a shift in LaFarge’s sound […]
Bill C. Malone opens his 2010 book Country Music, U.S.A., stating that country music “defies precise definition, and no term (not even ‘country’) has ever successfully encapsulated its essence” (Malone 2010, 1). In the past century, the ‘country music’ genre has […]
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the Spring 2016/Roots & Branches issue of No Depression in print. When we’re not running a summer subscription drive (now through June 15), the stories in the ND journal are exclusive to print. Subscribe […]
How about that Super Bowl, eh? Sportsing aside, Lady Gaga pulled off the remarkable feat of offending nobody and entertaining everybody with her halftime show. Before it started, everyone wondered if she’d make some sort of political statement in this […]
Today, I’m excited to report, we’re opening up the store for preorders and subscriptions, as we get ready to ship our Spring 2016 print journal on May 2. While we returned to the page last fall with ND’s first print edition […]
Many of us who write about music often like to ask artists what songs have most inspired them, or what songwriters most influenced them. Bob Boilen, creator and host of NPR Music’s All Songs Considered — as well as their […]
This is the first DJ profile where I didn’t know the person beforehand. It’s also the first DJ who has an “air name” and wishes to keep his anonymity sacred. I found Professor Purple through the Twang DJ Yahoo group, where like-minded air […]
For me, the year in music was defined by the veterans doing what they do best, and the youngsters running the gamut from homage to innovation. If there’s a common thread running through my year end list, it’s a sense […]
The holidays are nearly upon us, so why not give the gift of vinyl this year? Lots of younger folks (sometimes referred to as hipsters) are looking to get into vinyl, and those dusty old covers of ’70s country stars […]
