ALBUM REVIEW: Memphis Royal Brothers Extends the Good Times of ‘Take Me to the River’ Documentary
It's a gathering of royalty, but you won't find this bunch up on thrones. With juke joints as the dream team Memphis Royal Brothers’ palaces, stages are about as elevated as they get. But the music takes it higher, to a level suitable for kings and
FOUNDERS’ KEEPERS: Leslie Mendelson, Lemon Twigs, Fastball, and More
We’ve hit the middle of 2024, and first-rate new albums seem to be coming fast and furious. Here’s a look at five of my favorites released in May and June, all of which may well end up on my year-end top ten.
Leslie Mendelson — After the Party
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ALBUM REVIEW: Zeshan B Lays Out a Soulful Vision for Social Justice on ‘O Say, Can You See?’
Like Marvin Gaye, Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, and gospel singer James Cleveland, Zeshan B combines soaring vocals with swaying rhythms that inspire the soul and move the feet to action. On his third album O Say, Can You See? he adds lush layers of orchestration to his searing lyrics, transporting
SPOTLIGHT: AJ Lee on Being an Asian American Woman in Bluegrass
EDITOR’S NOTE: AJ Lee and Blue Summit is No Depression’s Spotlight band for July 2024. Learn more about the band and their new album, City of Glass, in our interview, and watch a video of them performing “Hillside” from the top of a mountain outside the Telluride Bluegrass
ALBUM REVIEW: Yarn Channels Live Roots-Rock Energy Into ‘Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive’
Yarn’s latest, Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive, opens with grand, sweeping blues rock and an imperative: get off that screen and join the party. The music, the message to “Turn Off the News,” neither are all that radical, but that’s not the point. It feels good — full stop.
ALBUM REVIEW: Charlie Overbey, With Friends, Shapes His Own Sound on ‘In Good Company’
Charlie Overbey has had a fistful of labels hung on him over his career: Cowpunker, rocker, outlaw countryman, Americanan, and even hatmaker. But Overbey opens his latest, In Good Company, with “Punk Rock Spy,” containing his own descriptor: "The punk rock spy in the house of the honky tonk