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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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Author: Tom Wilk

Record Review from web archive March 6, 2009

Raul Malo

Growing up as a Philadelphia Phillies fan in the 1960s, I was drawn to Cookie Rojas, a jack of all trades on the field who once played all nine positions in a single game. Like his fellow Cuban-American, Raul Malo demonstrates a similar versatility as a vocalist and musician on Lucky One, his first album [...]

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Record Review from web archive February 23, 2009

Syd Straw

Syd Straw works at her own pace when its comes to releasing solo albums. Pink Velour, her first studio CD since War And Peace in 1996, carries the credit line “Produced (very slowly) by Syd Straw.” But it proves to be worth the wait, as Straw delivers an intensely personal collection of songs (ten originals [...]

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Record Review from web archive January 9, 2009

Katy Moffatt

Like many veteran artists, Katy Moffatt has focused on concert performances rather than studio recordings with the music industry in a state of upheaval. She makes a welcome return with Fewer Things, her first studio album since Cowboy Girl, her 2001 western-themed disc. As the album title implies, Moffatt and producer Andrew Hardin adopt a [...]

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Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #75 May-June 2008

Buddy Holly – Not Fade Away — Buddy Holly 1957: The Complete Recordings

Over three CDs, the aptly titled Not Fade Away details Buddy Holly’s rise from struggling singer to international star during 1957. Along with Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, Holly helped to create the template for the singer-songwriter with his breakthrough hits “That’ll Be The Day” and “Peggy Sue”. Taking a cue from fellow guitarist Les [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #74 March-April 2008

Patty Larkin – Watch The Sky

Watch The Sky is a solo album in the literal sense, as Patty Larkin handles all the vocals, instrumentation, songwriting and production. She uses nearly a dozen instruments (guitars, banjo, bouzouki, toy organ) to create a landscape of layered sound that goes beyond the singer-songwriter norm with unexpected results. On “Phone Message”, the opening track, [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #72 Nov-Dec 2007

Ben Vaughn – Vaughn Sings Vaughn, Vol. 1 & 2

Ben Vaughn has come full circle in his musical career. After starting out in the 1980s as a singer-songwriter fronting his own combo, he found success in the late 1990s doing soundtrack work for television, most notably “3rd Rock From The Sun” and “That ’70s Show”. The first two volumes of Vaughn Sings Vaughn put [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #72 Nov-Dec 2007

Sterling Harrison – South of the Snooty Fox

In a fairer world, “South of the Snooty Fox” would have launched a comeback for soul singer Sterling Harrison. Instead, it will serve as a fitting epitaph for the veteran soul singer who died of cancer at age 64 in August 2005. A commanding vocalist with a range that went from deep growl to liberating [...]

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Not Fade Away - Reissue Review from Issue #72 Nov-Dec 2007

Modern Lovers – Self-Titled

More than three decades after its original release, the Modern Lovers’ self-titled debut retains its visceral power with a disarming straightforwardness. “Roadrunner”, Jonathan Richman’s celebration of AM radio in a car, is the perfect opener as the song gets pushed into fifth gear by his guitar and Jerry Harrison’s organ. The edgy “She Cracked” and [...]

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Bound - Book Review from Issue #71 Sep-Oct 2007

Steve Goodman: Facing the Music

Steve Goodman was a study in contrasts. At 5 feet 2 inches, he stood tall among those who knew him as a man and a musician. While his life was cut short by leukemia in 1984 at age 36, Goodman lived and performed with a zest like every show might be his last. Steve Goodman: [...]

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Waxed - Record Review from Issue #71 Sep-Oct 2007

Abra Moore – On the Way

On her first solo album since 2004′s Everything Changed, Abra Moore continues to push the boundaries of the singer-songwriter genre. Producer Mitch Watkins, who also contributes guitar and keyboards, provides a sonic landscape that allows Moore’s voice to wash over the music. “Into The Sunset”, the opening track, sets the tone as a soaring pop [...]

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From the Blogs

  • Brittany Holljes on the Origins of Delta Rae and Her Healthy Fleetwood Mac Obsession
    Delta Rae might sound like the down-home name of a backwoods country singer but it’s really just Greek to Brittany Holljes. “I think there are a lot of ‘Delta’ bands out there, too, so we kind of get that ... people get confused,” said Holljes, the whip-smart singer of the North Carolina-based sextet (like Deborah Harry used to say about Blondie, Delta Rae i […]
  • Crowd-sourcing to crowd-pleasing: The rise of Kat Edmonson
    If Kat Edmonson ever becomes a household name, she can put it down not just to her talent as a jazz singer, but to some decidedly modern financing as well. The 29-year-old Texan, an old-school chanteuse with a contemporary lilt, has funded production of her second album via a community workshop and through… […]
  • When to get your ass saved and when to drown
    How does the co-writing song process differ from the alone songwriting process you just wrote about? Co-writing is quite different from writing alone. When I'm working on something alone I have complete freedom. Freedom to experiment, to make mistakes, to try things I'm quite sure won't work and the freedom to reconstruct whatever has come bef […]
  • CD Review - Fiddleworms "See The Light"
    The ambitious new album See The Light, from Alabama quintet Fiddleworms is a cavalcade of styles with literally a parade of guest musicians including the University of North Alabama marching Band. The eleven original tracks are interspersed with snippets of radio sound effects and spoken word segments that flow from jazzy blues to stomping country rock fusio […]
  • Interview with Raul Malo from the Mavericks
    May 2013 There are very few singers or bands that have a 100% distinctive Trademark sound; but The Mavericks achieved that very early in their career and in the UK you still can’t go to a Wedding without being corralled onto the dance-floor as soon as you hear the opening bars to Dance The Night Away. After breaking up in 2004 lead singer and songwriter, Rau […]
  • The Great Escape, Brighton, 2013: day one
    So, here we are again, tramping the streets of Brighton, squeezing into someunfeasibly small spaces to see bands we've never heard of... I'd been feeling somewhat underexcited by this year's Great Escape because it the only one of hundreds of names on the bill that I knew I liked was Billy Bragg, who appears at the Dome tonight. But a quick bu […]

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