
Peter Cooper on Johnny's Cash and Charley's Pride
Peter Cooper, the Senior Director, Producer, and Writer at the Country Music Hall of Fame, hits home runs every time he steps up to the plate. When he was covering music for the Tennessean, you could count on Cooper to deliver humorous, perceptive tales of country musicians and their foibles.

Groundhog Day Experiment #1: Hickory Wind
I was thumbing through the recent issue of New York magazine when I saw that they've made a Broadway musical from the 1994 film Groundhog Day. You know the story: Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, who goes to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report on the annual de-hibernation of the

Routes to Roots II: Wayne and Kristin Scott Benson
Performing in a major bluegrass band is a grueling business. In order to subsist as a bluegrass musician, a player is often on the road from Thursday through Sunday, frequently appearing at three different events placed hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. Typically, at a bluegrass festival, a band

Keep It Goin': Levon Helm's Midnight Rambles
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally appeared in the Summer 2016/Homegrown edition of No Depression's quarterly journal, which is now sold out. Subscribe to No Depression today and never miss another issue.
Rambling at midnight goes back many centuries and encompasses, to put it mildly, a

Singer-songwriter Passenger finds increasing audience with songs of hope and empathy
As a lawyer, as a teacher, and perhaps most importantly, as a mother, I have a pretty good sense of when people are telling me the truth and when they’re being other than their authentic selves. Perhaps that is why I have turned down opportunities from time to time

Tammy Faye Starlite as Nico: 'Inappropriate is My Favorite Adjective'
Nico was a compelling, grim and somewhat scary performer at Manhattan clubs in the late 1970s. I remember sitting on a wooden floor of a now-defunct club as the celebrated Andy Warhol protégé sat in the center of the room fervently pressing on the keys of her harmonium.
It was