{"id":8528,"date":"2017-02-21T19:10:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T19:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=8528"},"modified":"2017-02-24T19:46:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-24T19:46:29","slug":"no-depression-print-quarterly-investigates-and-celebrates-heartland-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=8528","title":{"rendered":"No Depression print quarterly investigates and celebrates Heartland music"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The full cover of the “Heartland” issue of the Spring 2017 issue of No Depression, The Quarterly Journal of Roots Music. Cover painting by Iowan Greta Songe\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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In Milwaukee at least, spring is in the air, and in the earth and the river. The pathway along the Milwaukee River down below Kern Park is still fairly muddy but leaf padding of decayed brown and faded gold along each side of the path allows fairly brisk negotiation.<\/p>\n

Ah, but if you pause to observe nature’s inexorable might, the big river flows swift and strong in it’s fluid, forward tumble. The quirky rhythm of the meandering pathway and the propulsive rhythms of the river are part of the essential music of the heartland which helps, perhaps subconsciously, inspire the rhythms and melodies of human music which emerges from the vast, green, heaving chest of America, The Heartland.<\/p>\n

So it is now time to respond to that embrace\u2019s cultural power. There’s no better way to do so in one fell swoop, short of turning on a Jayhawks CD or a rootsy radio station, than the Spring 2017 issue of\u00a0No Depression, The Quarterly Journal of Roots Music<\/em>, entitled\u00a0The Heartland.<\/em><\/p>\n

Full disclosure: the issue includes an article by this writer, a survey of upper Midwest venues that cater to roots music, ranging from a working CSA farm to a poster-bedecked Madison basement house-concert venue.<\/p>\n

The 160-page coffee table-sized journal began by defying most digital media trends through reasserting intellectual and aesthetic quality in real print. Editor-in-chief Kim Reuhl has stood on the shoulders of the strong journalistic tradition pioneered by her predecessors Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden when they began the original No Depression magazine in 1995, dedicated to the growing movement of roots music that looks forward as much as it reaches back into the past. When the magazine ceased operations it continued as a very strong community-oriented website. Then a new business partnership with The FreshGrass Foundation in 2015 opened the doors to reinvent No Depression as a new kind of print music publication.<\/p>\n

Indeed, as you sit with a copy of the journal in your lap, the photography and artwork, often spreading across both pages, has the scale and quality of a wide laptop screen of digital imagery. This graphic sensation reminds us that the experience of roots music rises from the thick, layered and complex texture of American culture, the intersection of our strong ethnic musical traditions which remained the envy and allure of the world over.<\/p>\n

Plus, you can sit or carry the journal anywhere and enjoy not only the lush graphics but a serious standard of music writing. I can attest, Reuhl works in much closer collaboration with writers in crafting stories than most editors I\u2019ve ever experienced. Of course, the internet has facilitated that close interactive relationship, which was always more cumbersome for print publications with contributions from writers all over North America, and beyond (The summer edition will be \u201cThe International Issue,\u201d defying the stereotype of roots music as provincial, hayseed or American-centric.)<\/p>\n

Besides seasoned and skilled journalists, the quarterly features contributions by literate and eloquent musicians including, in the Heartland<\/em> issue, Minnesota blues man Charlie Parr, Indiana blues man Reverend Payton, Illinois folk-wit Robbie Fulks, and a revealing piece by Alabama-born singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, who details her peculiar challenges in penetrating heartland radio, venues and audiences. Yet she persists towards mid-America, and quotes a favorite political maxim: \u201cAs Ohio goes, so goes the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparing more self-service, I\u2019ll let my article \u201cFill the Room: Peeking in on the Upper Midwest\u2019s Music Venues\u201d speak for itself. I haven\u2019t even read the whole issue yet, but it seems brimming with highlights, including Margaret Daniels\u2019 examination of the Midwest seedlings of Bob Dylan\u2019s voracious scholarly genius. She draws connections to Dylan\u2019s fellow Minnesotan literary lion F. Scott Fitzgerald including, as Dylan put it in his recent Nobel Prize for Literature speech, how the two writers share \u201cinarticulate dreams\u201d which they both honed to gleaming and haunting vividness.<\/p>\n

Katherine Turman\u2019s far-reaching re-examination of so-called \u201cheartland rock\u201d reveals it to be a complicated and far-flung musical phenomenon with improbable classical music foundations, melding sophistication with the jagged edge. She also shows how such big-shouldered music has helped sustain the success of the Farm Aid benefit concert series by connecting with stadium-sized crowds, which the more coffeehouse-scale dynamics of much roots music can\u2019t quite reach.<\/p>\n

Historically deeper still is Stephen Deusner\u2019s unearthing and reclamation of the seminal Indiana vernacular music \u201crecording laboratory\u201d Gennett. The label gave us, among other things, Charley Patton\u2019s harrowing 1929 country blues hollers, and Louis Armstrong\u2019s dazzling New Orleans-style jazz recordings with King Oliver, from 1923.<\/p>\n

I was also impressed with an interview-profile with singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey, a figure with a street-corner Socrates flair. He annually travels around his native Wisconsin on a bicycle, which allows him to feel the warp and the woof of both cities and rural regions, above all his still-troubled hometown of Milwaukee. The article also reveals Mulvey\u2019s passion and debt to poetry, in his use of concise imagery and artistic \u201cbreathing space.\u201d Author Erin Lyndal Martin shows how Mulvey achieves a balance between the philosophical, the political and the poetical, while engaging and challenging with musical storytelling and a palpable openness of spirit.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what much of the best roots music does, but in ways characteristic of each artist or group. When you open the wide pages of this journal, it\u2019s a bit like peeking into that big, defiantly persistent American heart.<\/p>\n

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For a preview of the \u201cHeartland\u201d issue and mail ordering and retail outlet information, see below.<\/p>\n

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The Spring 2017 issue of No Depression, \u201cHeartland,\u201d explores the stories and music that thumps, picks, and breathes between the coasts. While mainstream music critics focus on cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Nashville to learn about rising stars and buzzworthy music, artists in cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Iowa City are making some of the purest, most honest roots music around. What\u2019s more, artists from the coasts are increasingly touring the heartland \u2014 and some are even moving there \u2014 to find inspiration in the region\u2019s big skies, honest people, and rich musical legacies.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Buy this issue for $15<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Heartland Rock with John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, and Kansas \/ The influence of Hee Haw<\/em> and Branson, Missouri \/ Native American music in the Dakotas \/ The unknown story of Indiana\u2019s Gennett Records \/ The musical pipeline between Chicago and Austin \/ Why singer-songwriters like Jesse Sykes and Lissie are moving to Iowa<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Bob Dylan \/ The Jayhawks \/ Conor Oberst \/ Over the Rhine \/ Peter Mulvey \/ Chicago Farmer \/ Bozeman, Montana \/ Cleveland, Ohio \/ Essays by artists like Reverend Peyton and many more<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The full cover of the “Heartland” issue of the Spring 2017 issue of No Depression, The Quarterly Journal of Roots Music. Cover painting by Iowan Greta Songe\u00a0\u00a0   In Milwaukee at least, spring is in the air, and in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[186,187,191,184,193,190,182,189,183,192,194,188,185],"class_list":["post-8528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com","tag-allison-moorer","tag-bob-dylan","tag-charley-patton","tag-charlie-parr","tag-farm-aid","tag-gennett-records","tag-heartland","tag-heartland-rock","tag-kim-reuhl","tag-louis-armstrong","tag-no-depression-quarterly-of-roots-music","tag-peter-mulvey","tag-robbie-fulks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-2dy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8528"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8550,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8528\/revisions\/8550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}