Introducing No Depression’s Spring 2025 Journal + Playlist
Hilary Saunders
Posted On April 7, 2025
Original cover art for Spring 2025 by Troy Hahn
EDITOR’S NOTE: Managing Editor Hilary Saunders’ letter, below, opens our Winter 2024 quarterly journal, featuring the best and most timely stories in roots music today. Buy the Winter 2024 issue in print or digitally here.
Music has taken me all over the world. Last year, I went to Kansas City, Juneau, Tulsa, Bentonville, Wichita, Park City, Tønder, Copenhagen, North Adams, Mississauga, Niagara, and St. Louis for music. Already in 2025, I’ve been to Key West, Belize City, Cozumel, San Juan, Grand Turk, and Montreal for strategic partnerships, conferences, and festivals on behalf of No Depression. I’m a wanderer by nature, but I wouldn’t have been able to do half of the things I’ve done without connections afforded to me through the music industry.
None of this is to brag! The wrinkle is that neither I, nor most musicians on tour, could pay for these adventures we get to go on based on the money we make doing this work. We get to travel, to play, to see the world through music — but working in music alone wouldn’t afford us the opportunities to do so. It’s a conversation I’ve been having more and more these days with music journalists, publicists, and managers; with recording engineers and producers; with artists all over the world: It’s getting harder and harder to make a living in the music industry.
When I connect with a guest editor to brainstorm a story idea for an issue of No Depression, I try to leave the topic open-ended. The goal is to find out what roots musicians today care about the most, what issues are most pressing, and what they don’t think is being covered enough, and to direct a reporter’s eye to that topic. When Rhiannon Giddens and I got on Zoom back in December, one of the first things she expressed was how rapidly the middle class is shrinking in the music industry and how drastically it’s impacting roots musicians.
It’s my absolute honor to share that No Depression’s former web editor Meredith Lawrence tackled Rhiannon’s idea with the tenacity of a trained reporter and the authenticity of a passionate music fan. And to complete Rhiannon’s guest editor spotlight, No Depression’s copy editor (and former assistant editor) Stacy Chandler wrote a beautiful, multifaceted profile on one of roots music’s most important women. As her sometimes bandmate and fellow songwriter Allison Russell wrote in our Artist of the Decade series at the end of 2019, “Rhiannon Giddens is more than an artist of the decade. She’s an artist for the ages.”
Speaking of a whole decade, 2025 marks 10 years that No Depression has been back in print, thanks to the support of the FreshGrass Foundation. This year is also the 30th anniversary since the publication’s founding! Throughout the year, we’ll be honoring this incredible achievement with stories and photos, starting in this issue with an essay from No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock.
We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for you, though. No Depression’s readers, and the artists we cover, are why this kind of journalism still exists at all. Thank you for believing in us and for continuing to support independent roots music journalism after 30 years.
Listen to our Spring 2025 playlist, featuring songs and artists mentioned in the issue:
