No Depression: An Introduction to Alternative Country Music. Whatever That Is.

Provides an introduction to alternative country music

The alternative country movement, which comprises cowpunkers, folkies, Bakersfield sound revivalists?anyone "too old, too loud or too eccentric for country radio"?is still waiting for a magazine to do for it what Rolling Stone did for rock and roll. In the interim, the jovially amateurish fanzine, No Depression, founded in 1995 by Seattle writers Alden and Blackstock and named after an A.P. Carter song, fills the gap. This smart, handsomely published selection from its first three years offers 35 interviews with some of the movement's most prominent poster children. Famously independent musicians like Steve Earle, Iris Dement, Cheri Knight and the Midwestern country-rock band, Wilco, are informative and earnest. More consistently entertaining are Alden's joint interview with old-timers Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver, who scrap over song-writing credits, and Allison Stewart's encounter with indie auteur Will Oldham (who likens himself to Judy Collins and clearly delights in leading his interviewer by the nose). For confirmed fans, however, it will be enough just to hear Earle explain what makes Shania Twain like Def Leppard, or to get an alt-country history lesson from Jason Ringenberg of the seminal Jason & the Scorchers. The editors supply discographies for the in-print albums of the artists, as well as a listing of the "101 most influential" alternative country music albums in print.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This enjoyable compilation of articles from the magazine of the same name looks at varied singers and artists who defy the Nashville commercial recording establishment to do it "their way." The writers capture the idiosyncratic approaches to what can be generally termed "country music" taken by musicians like former big-name country stars Waylon Jennings, Johnny Rodriguez, Steve Earle, and Charlie Louvin; more folk-oriented artists like Steve Forbert and Iris Dement; songwriters Chip Taylor and Mickey Newbury; and bands like Jason & the Scorchers. The numerous contributors capture the lives and worldviews of these performers with universal skill. As a bonus, the editors include a discographical primer of No Depression music (all titles still in print) and a list of "Travesties" (titles out of print). This excellent, reasonably priced look at non-schlock musicians and songwriters is a necessary addition to any library stocking a solid collection of popular music titles.?David M. Turkalo, Suffolk Univ. Law Sch. Lib., Boston
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The "alternative" tag on rock became meaningless when the stuff conquered the sales charts, but alternative country hasn't repeated that achievement and, since most country recording labels eschew its wild, adventurous spirit, never may. The folks at No Depression magazine here gather from its pages profiles of "an assortment of artists who are either too old, too loud or too eccentric for country radio." Among these rewarding though marginal acts are BR5-49 (whose name was the phone number the semi-immortal Junior Samples flashed in his used-car-dealer bits on Hee-Haw), Wilco, and Jason & the Scorchers. Relative old-timers (and stars, actually) Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver are covered, too, as is quavery-voiced Iris Dement, who is popular with the liberal folk music crowd. The profiles are well-informed and tight as a Louvin Brothers harmony (Charlie Louvin--a 1950s alternative country performer, yet!--is the subject of the penultimate chapter). This is a primer that matches its subjects in vitality. Mike Tribby