STORY OF NO DEPRESSION
No Depression was launched as a quarterly print magazine covering alternative- country music in 1995. The publication was co-founded by Peter Blackstock and Grant Alden, who brought in Kyla Fairchild as a co-publisher shortly thereafter. Over the course of thirteen years, No Depression gradually grew into one of the nation's most prominent and broad-ranging bimonthly music publications until it ceased print operations in June 2008. Along the way, No Depression received Utne Reader Independent Press Awards for Arts & Literature coverage, and was cited as one of the nation's Top 20 magazines of any kind in 2004 by the Chicago Tribune.
Other ventures during the company's print history included a No Depression Tour (featuring Whiskeytown, the Old 97's, Hazeldine, and the Picketts) in 1997; two best-of anthologies published by Dowling Press (1998) and University of Texas Press (2005); and the No Depression Radio Show, which aired on dozens of stations across the country in 2002 and 2003.
The magazine operated a website, nodepression.net, for 11 years in conjunction with its bimonthly publication. When print operations ceased, plans were made for a major expansion of the website to launch Fall 2008. We also teamed up with University of Texas Press to launch a new "bookazine" – a hybrid book/magazine project – which will be released bi-annually beginning Fall 2008.
And in case you were wondering: Our name, No Depression, refers to a song written by southern gospel pioneer J.D. Vaughan called "No Depression In Heaven." The Carter Family recorded it in 1936, making the song one of their few topical offerings. It was cut again by Charlie Monroe (Bill's brother and one-time singing partner) in 1948, released as the B-side of his 1950 RCA single "Mother's Not Dead." It next resurfaced, minus one verse, on a 1959 album by the New Lost City Ramblers (whose membership included Mike Seeger) called Songs From The Depression. That is the album that St. Louis band Uncle Tupelo heard and that they made the title track to their 1990 debut album. And that, in turn, led to the naming of an Internet discussion board, No Depression/Alt.Country. We thought all that history made it an ideal name for a magazine that wished to cover the past, present and future of American music. And with nodepression.com, we're echoing the roots of that first-generation discussion board (which is still active, by the way).