Hilary Saunders

The FreshGrass Festival returns to North Adams, Massachusetts, this fall with another outstanding lineup. The 13th annual event — produced by No Depression's nonprofit publisher, the FreshGrass Foundation — will take place at the massive contemporary art museum Mass MoCA Sept. 22-24. In line with the Foundation's mission

March saw an explosion of roots music from unexpected places. In addition to stellar records from No Depression stalwarts like Sierra Ferrell, Taj Mahal, and Aoife O'Donovan, indie rock and pop stars like Waxahatchee, Kacey Musgraves, and Beyoncé flexed their country muscles too. No Depression covered them all,

Aoife O’Donovan maintains she’s not a political songwriter. Not intentionally, or outwardly, anyway. Sitting outside on her balcony in Central Florida, laughing about her coincidental fashion choice of a dad hat embroidered with the state’s outline, O’Donovan considers an artist’s public role in political matters.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Managing Editor Hilary Saunders’ letter, below, opens our Spring 2024 quarterly journal, featuring guest editors The Bacon Brothers and original cover art by singer-songwriter Joan Osborne. Buy the Spring 2024 issue in print or digitally here. Better yet, start a subscription with this issue and help support

Even in a leap year, the short month of February was long in roots music releases. Spotlight artist Madi Diaz eases listeners into this month's playlist, before a strong cadre of bluegrass representation from musicians like double bass leader Missy Raines, banjo icon Béla Fleck (interpolating composer George

January can be quite the slog after a busy holiday season, so mostly I've been wishing folks a "gentle" entry into the new year. Luckily, roots musicians provided not just gentle, but rollicking and thoughtful songs to ease into 2024: Spotlight artist Lizzie No traverses a