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Grant Alden

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Visiting With Iris DeMent’s Sublime ‘The Way I Should’ 30 Years On

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Visiting With Iris DeMent’s Sublime ‘The Way I Should’ 30 Years On

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the indispensable Yep Roc imprint has restored to the marketplace a remastered version of Iris DeMent's sole major label release, The Way I Should. It should be…it should be a big hairy deal. Just listen. If nothing else, listen to

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Drivin' & Cryin' Scatter Memories Across 'Crushing Flowers'

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Drivin' & Cryin' Scatter Memories Across 'Crushing Flowers'

By '87 Agent Pink had come back from LA with an expensive degree and a lot of experience talking into a college radio microphone. I was the typesetter at a regional music magazine, which paid the rent, promised bylines, and came with the chance to flip through a crate

The Hard Balance of Real Life Renders Jon Dee Graham’s Body of Work All The More Impressive

The Hard Balance of Real Life Renders Jon Dee Graham’s Body of Work All The More Impressive

Editor's Note: Austin singer-songwriter Jon Dee Graham passed away on Friday, March 27 at age 67 after a fall. No Depression co-founder Grant Alden wrote this feature for issue #63, May-June 2006, of the original magazine and we're sharing it now in Graham&

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: A Change is Always Going to Come; The New Music of Ben Sollee

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: A Change is Always Going to Come; The New Music of Ben Sollee

Ben Sollee's latest album, Time On Hold (streaming release on Feb. 27), was recorded last summer in Fort Collins, Colorado, and not at home in Louisville, Kentucky. Sollee's notes say it draws inspiration from the country soul of '70s singer-songwriters like James Taylor and

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Small But Mighty Music

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Small But Mighty Music

Shop small, they say, backed by a brief national marketing campaign, signage, slogans, all the rest. Yes, please. Please support small business, what's left of it, for I am a serial entrepreneur, married into a bookstore/coffeeshop located in a small town in the Appalachian foothills. Voting matters,

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Re-Release of Tony Joe White’s ‘The Real Thang’ Certainly Is

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Re-Release of Tony Joe White’s ‘The Real Thang’ Certainly Is

It is possible, with very little effort, to stream live video of Elvis Presley singing “Polk Salad Annie,” back during his final credibility scare, and then of the songwriter, Tony Joe White, singing it on network T.V. with the host of “The Johnny Cash Show” (oh yeah, that'

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Sing it Like You Mean It. Love, Woody Guthrie

FOUNDERS KEEPERS: Sing it Like You Mean It. Love, Woody Guthrie

We learned by heart most of the words to “This Land Is Your Land” in second grade, the year the duck and cover drills ended and I was fitted for black-rimmed glasses. Most of the words, that is, because we were second graders and, really, it was all about