No Depression Reviewers and Writers' Favorite Roots Music Albums of 2021
It’s no easy task, but every year when it comes time for No Depression’s staff and contributors to pick their favorite roots music releases, they knock it out of the park.
As always, there’s some overlap with our Year-End Readers Poll results, but not much this year.
‘That Kind of Life’ Shows Michigan Rattlers Building Up
EDITOR'S NOTE: As album releases slow down in December, we like to catch our breath and write about albums that came out earlier in the year that we didn't get a chance to review but we think are worthy of your attention. That Kind of Life
Inside American Aquarium’s ’90s Country Labor of Love
They say the songs you hear in adolescence are the ones that stick with you, resonating over the rest of your life and, of course, embedding their lyrics forever in your brain.
For American Aquarium bandleader BJ Barham, those songs were the country radio hits pouring out of the family
50 STATES OF FOLK: How Illinois Launched a Worldwide Ragtime Craze
As previously discussed in this column, much of what we consider to be “roots music” these days stemmed directly from the Black experience in America. Spirituals and gospel have their origins in the field churches of enslaved Black Americans. The blues were born in the financial despair of Reconstruction. Old-time
No Depression Readers’ 50 Favorite Roots Music Albums of 2021
In a year where people were mostly kept apart by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, music brought us together. By summer, we were venturing out to see live shows, mostly outdoors, often at a distance still, but all through 2021, recorded albums brought solace and strength, even if we were just
Jesse Dayton Mines a Lifetime of Collaboration for ‘Beaumonster’ Memoir and Album
EDITOR'S NOTE: As album releases slow down in December, we like to catch our breath and write about albums that came out earlier in the year that we didn't get a chance to review but we think are worthy of your attention. (In this case, it&