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No Depression has been the foremost journalistic authority on roots music for well over a decade, publishing 75 issues from 1995 to 2008. No Depression ceased publishing magazines in 2008 and took to the web. We have made the contents of those issues accessible online via this extensive archive and also feature a robust community website with blogs, photos, videos, music, news, discussion and more.

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Artist: Mountain Heart

Waxed - Record Review from Issue #73 Jan-Feb 2008

Mountain Heart – Road That Never Ends: The Live Album

Mountain Heart has long had a perfectly good thing going: a crisp, smooth sound, nimble musicianship (notably fiddler Jim Van Cleve, banjoist Barry Abernathy and mandolinist Adam Steffey), and a repertoire heavily weighted toward gospel. Sometime between 2006′s Wide Open and this live disc, they plucked vocalist/pianist/guitarist Josh Shilling from a funk and soul band [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #63 May-June 2006

Mountain Heart – Wide Open

Mountain Heart’s third album for the Skaggs Family label is their most honest recording to date. The bandmembers may have been schooled by the likes of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver and the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, but they also heard the FM stereo sounds of Journey and James Taylor. So it’s entirely fitting that their [...]

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Miked - Live Reviews from Issue #53 Sept-Oct 2004

Rhonda Vincent & The Rage / Mountain Heart – Red, White & Bluegrass Night – Ryman Auditorium (Nashville, TN)

The Middle Tennessee area has had more than its share of servicemen away on long hauls in Iraq, many home momentarily this summer before being sent right on back. So this edition of the regular summertime Thursday night bluegrass shows at the Ryman, just a few days after the Fourth of July and featuring headliners [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #52 July-Aug 2004

Mountain Heart – Force Of Nature

No bluegrass band has come on stronger in the last few years than Mountain Heart, which won the IBMA’s Emerging Artist of the Year title a couple of years ago before their first album had hit the streets. Their Skaggs Family debut, No Other Way, increased their visibility, and now the group returns with a [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #43 Jan-Feb 2003

Mountain Heart – No Other Way

Mountain Heart was voted IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 1999, before they’d even released their debut album. That makes for an interesting piece of bluegrass music trivia, but it’s hardly anything you can build a career on. Successful careers are built on exceptional albums and heartfelt live performances — something past Emerging Artist [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #36 Nov-Dec 2001

Mountain Heart – The Journey

Even before the release of their 1999 debut, the members of Mountain Heart were looking forward to this, their first all-gospel collection. So were fans of the band’s polished but heartfelt eclecticism, and their patience has been rewarded with an elegant set that builds on the strengths of the earlier release. The Journey covers a [...]

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Town and Country - Shorter Artist Feature from Issue #25 Jan-Feb 2000

Mountain Heart – Gulley’s jumpers

The best bluegrass music of 1999 came from artists with some mileage on their tires, if you will. Del McCoury, John Hartford, Dolly Parton and Dudley Connell are among the seasoned voices who have recently repudiated, with grace and depth, the pop music world’s maddening cult of youth. At the same time, bluegrass audiences can [...]

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Miked - Live Reviews from Issue #20 March-April 1999

A Tribute To The Stanley Tradition: Unlimited Tradition – Mountain Arts Center (Prestonburg, KY)

About 20 minutes east of Lexington, Kentucky, the Mountain Parkway veers away from Interstate 64, narrowing down as it rises up through the hills of eastern Kentucky to Salyersville, the Magoffin County seat. From there, an even smaller road winds even higher until, just as an urbanite begins to wonder if he’s lost the way, [...]

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From the Blogs

  • CD Review - I See Hawks in L.A. "Mystery Drug"
    Cinematic and atmospheric Alt-Country After nearly 50 years as a music fan and 15 as a reviewer I still get excited about discovering new bands and having my breath taken away by songs and tunes that I’ve not heard before. I was aware of I See Hawks in L.A. but only owned 3 tracks on VA compilations when this album arrived, so was only mildly interested at t […]
  • CD Review - John Reischman "Walk Along John"
    As a west coast Canadian, bluegrass has always seemed like an exotic musical form.  When I hear it, I think of mountains, forests, rivers, and a rural lifestyle that has long past and gone.  Artists like Ralph Stanley and the Monroe Brothers loom like Biblical characters in my imagination, leathery, rugged and indisputably American. In the same way that I al […]
  • CD/DVD Review - Leonard Cohen "Live At The Isle Of Wight"
    Good new for those awaiting the release of more old Leonard Cohen from the days when he was still depressed and very much on the edge. In 2009, a CD/DVD package was released on Columbia of a concert that took place on The Isle Of Wight for the English version of Woodstock in 1970. Both the CD & DVD are complete with many charming Leonard songs from his s […]
  • An Interview with Bahhaj Taherzadeh of We/Or/Me
    We/Or/Me is Bahhaj Taherzadeh, a Chicago-based, Irish-born artist whose music has quietly and gradually been attracting the attention of critics over recent years. Jon Martin calls it “the soundtrack to your most quiet moments”, Sean Michaels says, it's a salve and a peace, and Robin Hilton at NPR has been a consistent advocate of the “wise and slightly […]
  • A Double Shot of Southern Comfort With Tom Petty and the Tontons
    The Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama, isn’t all about the headlining acts such as Kings of Leon and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The pride of Gainesville, Florida, Petty had sort of the home-field advantage Saturday night on the Hangout Stage, playing just one state over and practically a direct Interstate-10 shot from Heartbreakers… […]
  • CD Review - Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters "Just For Today"
    Just For Today Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters It's Ronnie Earl's band, but he doesn't dominate it. Recorded live at a couple of venues in his home state of Massachusetts,the Stony Plains release is a seamless blend of jazz, soul and r&b by a band of seasoned vets comfortable enough with one another to have an intense musical conversation […]

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