No Depression set up the "studio" at the 37th annual MerleFest for a dozen sessions with legends and legends-in-the-making. The festival was founded in 1988 in memory of Doc Watson’s son Merle, and features “traditional plus” music, meaning a broad range of styles from the sweet falsetto harmonies of East L.A. to the high lonesome sounds of the Appalachian Mountains.
Hometown hero Presley Barker welcomed us to his turf for the final No Depression x MerleFest Session of 2025, sharing three unreleased original songs and closing us out in style. When I say "hometown," I mean that Barker is as integrated into the community as anybody could be, having graduated from Wilkes Community College, the campus where MerleFest is hosted (*and he graduated from UNC Charlotte a month after this taping, congrats Presley!). Doc Watson inspired Barker to pick up the guitar at age 7, and he's been working at it diligently ever since. He is among the chosen few to own a guitar built by legendary Virginia luthier Wayne Henderson, joining the ranks of Tommy Emmanuel, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Gillian Welch, Ricky Skaggs, and Eric Clapton.
Special thanks to everybody who made this series happen: MerleFest director Wes Whitson and his team of aces including artist relations manager Lindsay Craven, production managers Jim and Katherine, Carrie and Lauren for keeping us fat and happy, Danielle and the Victory Lap family for bringing us together in the first place, and of course to the team at Window World for making it all possible!
Setlist:
"Stick Around Kind"
"Let You Go Again"
"Couldn't Love Me Anymore"
Read next
SPOTLIGHT: Jude Brothers’ Kaleidoscopic Album ‘Dogwood Maiden Voyage’ Navigates Through Nature and Reinvention
Editor's Note: Jude Brothers, whose new LP titled Dogwood Maiden Voyage is due out September 25 via Gar Hole Records, is No Depression's Spotlight Artist for September 2026. Stay tuned all month for more about this Ozarks singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Jude Brothers needs the
Buddy Miller Mixes Country-Soul Classics With Fresh Originals on Self-Titled Return
Buddy Miller has recorded music under his own name for the last 30 years, but his influence on roots music stretches far wider. He began playing in the ’70s in Austin, where he met his future wife Julie Griffin when they both were in a band called Partners in Crime.
In The Deep End With The Mary Wallopers
Labor Day is not a recognized holiday in Ireland. So while much of the US and Canada were enjoying a day off — the result of protests for fair working conditions organized by trade union workers from the late 1800s — it was just another Monday in Dundalk, in the far northeast
Comments ()