Photo by baona / Getty Images Signature
It’s hard to know where to begin this column. I think I’d better break with convention and begin with the end: This is goodbye.
Mostly.
Today is my last day on staff at No Depression, after 11 years of various little jobs here that eventually added up to one big job as assistant editor, which mostly has entailed the care and feeding of our website. With immense love in my heart for the entire team here at ND, I’m heading to a new career in communications with PineCone, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving, presenting, and promoting roots music in Raleigh, my home for the last decade and a half.
Stacy Chandler (photo by Geoffrey Chandler)
It’s only “mostly” a goodbye because you’ll still see my byline here from time to time. My passion for music journalism hasn’t waned, and there are so many stories I still want to tell. And I’ll continue copy editing our quarterly journal, because I’m the kind of nerd that finds that really fun. But it’s time to turn over the keys to someone else.
In the short term, that’ll be Kim Ruehl, former editor-in-chief of ND and forever friend to the publication and to me who is kindly coming back into the fold to keep things moving in September. You can reach her and her eventual successor about ND stuff at news (at) nodepression.com.
Kim was here when I was hired by original ND publisher Kyla Fairchild. At first I was a newsletter proofreader and fill-in writer of social media posts, a gig that was supposed to last just through the summer. But I ended up sticking around through many job titles, a change in ownership (the FreshGrass Foundation acquired ND in 2014), several website redesigns, and drastic shifts in the businesses of both music and journalism.
But amid all that change, some really important things have stayed the same. This music — roots music, alt-country, Americana, whatever you want to call it (whatever that is … ) — is still a powerful force for reckoning with the world around us. And the community of people around it, those who make the music and those who take it into their hearts, is the best part. They’re the dreamers and the doers, the hopers and the helpers, and just the nicest folks you could ever hope to meet.
I want to thank so many of those people, and hug their necks, too. Some of my favorite artists have astonished me by giving generously of their time and their thoughts, often on very personal topics. It’s been my absolute honor to get to share those conversations, as well as the music, with ND readers.
Behind the scenes in the music industry is an army of kind people supporting artists, and I’ve been fortunate in this job to come into contact with many of them. Publicists, promoters, producers, managers, agents, label folks — they don’t tell me all their secrets, but they tell me enough to make me understand what a miracle it is when a song or album finds its way into the world. They don’t get the spotlight, and they don’t really want it either. But they deserve a high-five, for sure.
I’m grateful every day for the incredible team here at No Depression, the folks I work with now and those I was lucky enough to work with earlier in my sojourn. My fellow staffers and all our contributors inspire me constantly and have helped me become better and dream bigger.
Most of all, though, I’m grateful for No Depression’s readers. Our music is the kind that requires passion to survive, and boy do y’all have it. If you hear a great new song, you let everyone know. You show up at concerts, you buy records, and you subscribe and donate to publications and organizations that keep you connected to the music. You’re the reason No Depression was founded, and you’re the reason it continues to exist. Thank you.
Look, I’ve never been the smartest person about music in the room. I’m not a walking encyclopedia of music history. I’m not friends with famous people. I’m not very cool and I’m not great at faking that I am. I’m just an extremely lucky person who loves this music and this community. And I look forward to making a new kind of way in it, with No Depression, with PineCone, and, as always, as a fan.
