After news broke that talent agency founder Casey Wasserman was included and implicated in the so-called Epstein files, artists began dropping the Wasserman Group as their representation. Roots musicians like Orville Peck and Wednesday, as well as pop stars like Chappell Roan and Laufey, have all left. Since then, Wasserman has said that he intends to sell the company. Read more at The Hollywood Reporter.
Music itself will exist for as long as humans continue to congregate. But when art and commerce mix, public policy must come into play. And in Music City, an independent venue owner has called out local officials for rising property taxes. Tom Morales, of Nashville's Acme Feed & Seed, told The Tennessean that the property taxes for the building increased from about $129,000 to about $600,000 in one year. The business, which includes a bar, restaurant, and performance space, turns a profit each year, but this discrepancy might force them to close. Read more at Fox 17 WZTV and check out Nashville multi-instrumentalist and producer Chris Scruggs' open letter to the mayor below.
Brandi Carlile has decided to livestream her sold out show at Minneapolis’ Target Center tomorrow, February 21 in support of Minnesota’s The Advocates for Human Rights. Fans can listen to “Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis” for free via Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current at 89.3 FM online at TheCurrent.org; for live video, too, fans can buy tickets at VEEPS. Openers The Head and the Heart will start at 7pm CST and Carlile will go on at 8:15pm CST.
The devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic haven't completely vanished six years later and especially not for musicians. As Katie Chow reports for The Sick Times — a nonprofit, journalist-founded outlet — musicians across genres are still struggling with how to present meaningful live experiences while keeping themselves and their audiences as safe as possible. Read more here.
Singer-songwriter (and longtime No Depression supporter and featured artist) Joe Newberry suffered a heart attack recently and had to cancel the remaining tour dates with Canadian fiddler and dancer April Verch. A GoFundMe has been set up in order to help offset his medical expenses and ease his recovery.
Lastly, this week saw an onslaught of new music announcements:
Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds, the new(ish) moniker of Sturgill Simpson, will release new music only on physical mediums on March 13 via Atlantic Records. Mutiny After Midnight follows his 2024 "debut" Passage du Desir (ND review).
Folk duo The Milk Carton Kids' new album, Lost Cause Lover Fool, is due out April 24 via Far Cry Records/Thirty Tigers. The Band of Heathens gave this song, the first single from Lost Cause Lover Fool, a shoutout in their recent Top 5 feature here.
Glen Hansard will release a new collection titled Don+t Settle: Transmissions East & West in two parts: Vol. 1, Transmissions East is set to come out on April 24 and Vol. 2 is yet to be announced. As he posted to his website and socials:
I’ve always been more comfortable on stage than in a studio. I love making records. I love the process. But the song lives before an audience. A song needs witnesses. It’s where I feel like I can really grab hold of it. And know it – the way that it’s meant to be known. So to record this album in front of an audience was incredibly gratifying. It gave the songs a new lease of life. One always hopes the songs will land, take root and mean something new. Beauty is in the ear of the behearer.
On May 1, Emily Nenni will release Movin’ Shoes via New West Records. John James Tourville of The Deslondes produced the 13-song collection, which follows Nenni's 2024 release, Drive & Cry (ND review).
Speaking of The Deslondes, the band has a covers album, Don’t Let It Die Vol. 1, due out May 22 also via New West Records. The 12-track set was recorded live to tape in the band's own New Orleans studio and includes renditions of old songs by artists like Johnny Cash and Clifton Chenier, as well as collaborators like Nick Woods and up-and-comers like Kiki Cavazos. Check out their version of Edgar Blanchard's "Lawdy Mama" below.
Also on May 22, instrumental guitarist Marisa Anderson will release another compilation of songs culled from archivist Harry Smith's private record collection (ND feature from the Spring 2021 journal). The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music highlights music from places that the United States has been in conflict with since 1970, including Southeast Asia, Russia/the USSR, and countries in the Middle East. As Anderson wrote in a press release,
I am a musician, not an ethnomusicologist, or an anthropologist. ...I’m curious about how music is made, organized and shared. I am interested in how people and music move across the world, how war, migration, nomadism, colonization and contemporary and historical economic dynamics affect music and musicians. What is the musical relationship of people to place? How is that relationship altered when shifting borders or global conflicts curtail movement or force migration into or away from a place? What do we carry with us when we leave home, and what do we bring home from faraway places?
WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO
Rissi Palmer - Perspectives [EP]
Fazed on a Pony - swan
Mirah - Dedication (out today via Double Double Whammy)
William Prince f/ Tami Neilson - "Flowers on the Dash"
Lucinda Williams - on PBS NewsHour
NEW RELEASES - 2/20/26
Jesse Appelman - Where We Go
The Band of Heathens - Country Sides
Tim Easton - fIREHORSE
Jimmy Fretwell - analog dream
Mirah - Dedication
Rick Shea - Smoke Tree Road
COMING SOON - 2/27/26
Buck Meek - The Mirror
Lamisi - Let Us Clap
Lil Ed & The Blues Imperial - Slideways
Pert Near Sandstone - Side by Side
Julianne Riolino - Echo in the Dust
Rose's Pawn Shop - American Seams
Ben Sollee - Time On Hold
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