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Corbie Hill

ALBUM REVIEW: 1965 Concert Recording Finds Georgia Sea Island Singers Connecting With New Audience

ALBUM REVIEW: 1965 Concert Recording Finds Georgia Sea Island Singers Connecting With New Audience

The Complete Friends of Old Time Music Concert by Bessie Jones, John Davis, and the Georgia Sea Island Singers with Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ed Young opens with legendary ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax’s assurances that integration and world peace were imminent. The condenser mic didn’t pick up what the

ALBUM REVIEW: Gangstagrass Cooks Up a Summery Blend on ‘The Blackest Thing on the Menu’

ALBUM REVIEW: Gangstagrass Cooks Up a Summery Blend on ‘The Blackest Thing on the Menu’

Gangstagrass’ The Blackest Thing on the Menu is a summer record. It hearkens back to the late ’90s, when a certain music reviewer was a teenager. It sounds like speeding aimlessly down country roads in a rusted old hatchback, windows down, cranking burned CDs through blown speakers. Thing is, it

ALBUM REVIEW: Will Hoge Gives Songwriting the Spotlight on ‘Tenderhearted Boys'

ALBUM REVIEW: Will Hoge Gives Songwriting the Spotlight on ‘Tenderhearted Boys'

Teenagers are basically just giant toddlers. Usually we say this with a chuckle. It helps us wrap our heads around the baffling, illogical things teenagers say and do (or forget to do … ). Will Hoge, however, sees the toddler sweetness in his teenaged sons. On “Tenderhearted Boys,” the title track of

SPOTLIGHT: Joe Pug Finds a New Kind of Spark

SPOTLIGHT: Joe Pug Finds a New Kind of Spark

EDITOR’S NOTE: Joe Pug is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for March 2024. Look for more about him and his new album, Sketch of a Promised Departure, out March 8, all month long. Joe Pug’s friend and neighbor Ted has a joke: I just want my son to

ALBUM REVIEW: Along for the Ride on John Vincent III’s ‘Songs for the Canyon’

ALBUM REVIEW: Along for the Ride on John Vincent III’s ‘Songs for the Canyon’

Sometimes a sketch is enough. John Vincent III’s “More than Alive” is little more than acoustic guitar and gentle vocals. There’s a little fretless bass here, some effected guitar ambience there, but the song itself is as sparse as the Texas road it takes place upon and as

ALBUM REVIEW: Black Pumas Shine Up Their Sound for ‘Chronicles of a Diamond’

ALBUM REVIEW: Black Pumas Shine Up Their Sound for ‘Chronicles of a Diamond’

“Tomorrow” dawns gradually. In another context, the tambourines and patient three-count drums would give this Black Pumas slow burner an R&B slow dance feel, but a phaser-soaked electric guitar pulls it toward ’70s psychedelia while sparse synth bass bursts pull it toward Radiohead. “All I want

ALBUM REVIEW: John R. Miller Reflects Real Life on ‘Heat Comes Down’

ALBUM REVIEW: John R. Miller Reflects Real Life on ‘Heat Comes Down’

Some songwriters write short stories. Some write anthems. Some write life itself. “My friend had a Twin / I had some old no-name Strat,” John R. Miller sings on the gentle, finger-picked “Basements” on his new album, Heat Comes Down. “Our drummer’s dad was cool / he let us