ALBUM REVIEW: Billy Strings Takes Us Down a Long Highway
On the high-octane Highway Prayers, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Billy Strings flies down bluegrass straightaways, careening around curves with blind speed. These songs pay tribute to the backroads and byways Strings barreled down in his youth, and some of them pay tribute to his high-speed heroes (“Richard Petty”). Still others send up
THE READING ROOM: The Lasting Influence of Nanci Griffith
When Nanci Griffith died just a little over three years ago — on August 13, 2021 — many hearts were broken. We knew we had lost a woman who loved fiercely, sang tenderly, told stories of women embracing their power, and looked with a gimlet eye into the ragged ways individuals move
ALBUM REVIEW: On 'symbiont,' Blount and Obomsawin Remix the Ancestors
Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin (Odanak First Nation) have worked nothing less than a miracle on symbiont, out Friday on Smithsonian Folkways. The album continues the work of Blount's Afro-futurist climate change epic The New Faith (2022) and Obomsawin's portentous assertion of Indigenous music’s place
SPOTLIGHT: JD McPherson's First Five Guitars — Where Are They Now?
EDITOR’S NOTE: JD McPherson is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for September 2024. Learn more about him via this interview or check out an exclusive video of a song from his new album, Nite Owls, which releases Sep. 27 on New West Records.
Unidentified Child's Acoustic Guitar
ALBUM REVIEW: Randall Bramblett's Latest Weaves a Musical Tapestry
Randall Bramblett is a dreamcatcher of sorts. He captures images from the airy vaults where they recline, waiting to be downloaded by sensitive souls like him. Of course, translating them into a musical format requires some shapeshifting, so he blends jazz, country, folk, gospel, rock, and soul.
Bramblett has shared
FreshGrass | North Adams 2024: A Perfect Soundtrack to Perfect Weather
Right around where the traffic starts to thin on the drive from New York City to the Berkshires, the colors of the trees lining the Taconic Parkway start to change drastically — from green, to yellow, to fiery orange and red. Fall has officially hit the Berkshires, which means that it’