Category Archives: My Back Pages

The Tower Records Employee Reunion Of 2015

On a bright and sunny Sunday morning I enjoyed a sea of tunes while behind the wheel of my car on a drive around Manhattan. I cruised south along the Hudson, circled around Lincoln Center and turned north on Central Park West. The Dakota was barely recognizable at 72nd. It’s wrapped in scaffolding in the midst of a masonry rehab, but still attracts the selfie-sticked tourists who want a photographic memory of the spot where John Lennon was murdered, 35 years ago this coming December.

If he were still alive, Lennon would have recently turned 75, and I’d imagine there are many people who’ve taken a moment to ponder or write about what sort of man he might be today. Would he be involved in social justice issues of one sort or another, live in New York City, and be seen around town and in the Hamptons with Yoko while hobnobbing with other celebrities and the elite? Or would he have perhaps taken a different path altogether?

I’ve always fantasized that he would have grown into a songwriter and performer whose work would fit somewhere between that of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Perhaps he’d have a sprinkle of a journeyman like Steve Earle, and the wisdom and spirit of Pete Seeger. He wouldn’t be appearing as host on Saturday Night Live and participating in witless skits, nor strolling onstage at either a Taylor Swift or U2 concert, as if on a whim, for a “surprise” duet. He wouldn’t be a judge on American Idol, nor would he need to have a Broadway musical based on his life and music. He would be neither cloistered nor idolized, but respected and beloved. This is simply a speculative daydream of course, and should these words be written on paper as opposed to being read on a screen, no doubt we wouldn’t have bothered to kill the tree.

Depending on when you are reading this, about 500 former employees of Tower Records — with some friends and associates — have come or gone from an October 2015 reunion in Sacramento, California. There, from 1960 through 2006, was the home base of the world’s finest music retail chain. Put together by a handful of people, fueled by warm memories and enduring friendships, and with the assistance of social media, it is or was a couple of days celebrating a different time and place, when music consumption was driven by human interaction rather than solitary clicks; when businesses were built on relationships and shared goals. I’m also guessing, having read through the weekend’s agenda, there might be time for a few drinks, a couple of smokes, and a safe and sane rekindling of relationships. How’s that for political correctness?

One highlight will be the screening of All Things Must Pass, a film by Colin Hanks that documents the unique connection so many of us had with Russ Solomon’s Tower Records, and how it all came to an end. The expected tagline of course is that it was “The Internet” that killed it off, but the story really runs far beyond that.

The film debuted at SXSW earlier this year and is currently in limited release. Although I have yet to see it myself, as a vendor and partner of Tower Records for over 20 years I was an eyewitness to what many business writers at the time called the “perfect storm” of events. It was such a despicable, sad, and ugly ending, that I recall walking out of one of the L.A. stores on their last day open, feeling as if someone shot a hole in my heart. Here’s a clip … and an imaginary toast to all the friendships I made along the way that still live on.

From all accounts, everybody returned home safely and a helluva good time was had by all.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana and Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email address is easyed@therealeasyed.com.

Have You Heard Any Good Music Lately?

A few decades ago, when I ran a record store in California, I must have been asked that question a few hundred times a day. They weren’t usually the first words spoken by a new customer, since ascertaining the whereabouts and accessibility of our bathroom and confirming if we would accept personal checks were the top two. But after a cursory look at the waterfalls and end caps with the signage advertising sales and new releases, and a flip or two through the bins, most people would work up the courage to come to the counter, or engage some employee who was restocking the shelves out on the floor, and pop the question.

Anybody who has ever worked in a record store will tell you it was the best moment of the day. That question meant we got to do what we loved to do best: talk about music we knew about, that you’d never heard of. Of course there was a trick to getting it right. You didn’t want to pitch Ralph Stanley to the guy who was holding a dozen used classical albums by a specific Hungarian composer, nor make a rookie mistake like I once did when I handed Mike Love’s solo album of cover songs to Brian Wilson, who smacked it hard, grumbled, and stormed out. If you were going to discuss or suggest something, you needed to know your audience, have some idea of what you were talking about, and be able to stand your ground two days later when they brought it back and you had to lay the “no refund/no exchange” policy on them. A thankless job it was, indeed.

These days, when I want to find out about new music or even older titles that I’ve skipped over, there aren’t many places left to go nor many people to talk to. There are about a half-dozen websites in addition to this one that I visit regularly, to pick up threads of news about new artists and releases. I use You Tube and Spotify more than any other streaming services, wandering about usually late at night, like a prospector panning for gold. Living in a big city allows me access to a number of college and public radio stations, where left-of-center music is served up. And hitting just three festivals per summer exposes me to about a hundred acts over the course of a couple of weekends.

But there is something quite sad to this mission of a mostly singular search and discovery, and it makes me recall that there was once a forum over at No Depression dot com that endured for years. It was probably the most popular community forum topic and it asked the simple question about what you were listening to. People responded and shared almost daily. I thought it was a great service to the roots music community, but things change and it’s now hard to find. It was just sort of an old fashioned notion — an online bulletin board that went the way of AOL dial-up. Still, I sort of miss it.

So in the spirit and memory of that old fashioned community forum, where I met many good people, learned an awful lot, and expanded my musical horizons, here’s a brief list of what I’ve been listening to in the past couple of weeks. There’s some old, some new. Some borrowed, some blues. Should the spirit move you, head over to No Depression where this is posted, share your own list in the comments box, and you’ll get notified when others do the same. Then you too can answer the question: Have you heard any good music lately?

Joan Shelley – Over and Even: I loved her earlier collaboration with Daniel Martin Moore, and he engineered this one. Nathan Salsburg plays guitar. Will Oldham and Glen Detinger provide harmonies. It’s a Louisville thing.

Ola Belle Reed: Dust-To-Digital’s August-released book about her life comes with a two-disc sampler. Unbelievable.

Daniel Romano – If I’ve Only One Time Askin’: If you love your late-1950s, early-’60s classic country shaken and stirred with a touch of Gram Parsons, this is for you.

Nikki Talley – Out from the Harbor: I know, there are seven million singer-songwriters out on the road these days, but this woman delivers the type of North Carolina country you wished your local radio station played.

Meg Baird – Don’t Weigh Down the Light: A Philadelphian moves to San Francisco and mixes her Appalachian-style roots guitar work with ethereal vocals and an electric collaborator to create a post-Espers flashback.

The Kennedys – West: Pete and Maura bring out this duo album as well as two solo efforts. Expect more Byrds-like jingle-jangle guitar and their great, close harmonies. Catch them live if you can.

Los Lobos: I’m immersed in their entire catalog, which could take several years to get through. I’ve got acoustic En Vivo, Kiko, and the new Gates of Gold in heavy rotation now. And a tip of the sombrero to Los Super Seven — a great side project.

Oxford American Southern Music Samplers: Blessings to my friend in England who sent me his complete collection, going back to 1999. Most are sold out, but head over to the OA website and sign up to reserve this year’s sampler, which focuses on the music of Georgia. While you’re there, you can grab the few others still in print.

Okay, you’re it.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

Image by Joe Haupt/Creative Commons License

A Prairie Home Companion: From Panic Attack to Paradigm Shift

I awoke when it was still dark outside, a good hour before my alarm was set to go off. At a slow and deliberate pace, with my eyes shut tight and my arms stretched out in front of me waving around like a zombie as if I actually needed to feel my way through the six feet of empty space between the edge of my bed and the door to the bathroom, I tried hard to think of nothing. It is usually at this precise moment, as my body is responding to its natural calling, that my brain either chooses to stay in it’s restful state or begins to come alive, like a chick breaking through an eggshell. It is mighty rare that I’ll manage to climb back into the bed, pull the covers up past my chin, and slip back to my safe place.

On most days I lose the battle, as my thoughts and anxieties will surface from the deep and pull me from sleep. And it was indeed such a morning this past week, that I stood naked doing what I was doing when, in a flash, my eyes opened wide, a cold breeze caused my body to shudder, goosebumps popped up, and a buried memory of Garrison Keillor standing on the edge of the stage at St. Paul’s Fitzgerald Theater singing an Elvis Presley medley came barreling toward me. Forsaking the flush, I jumped onto my bed, reached for the MacBook, and with credit card numbers dancing in my head I searched for tickets to the three upcoming A Prairie Home Companion shows at New York City’s Town Hall. Sold out. A cold sweat and anxiety ensued.

Most readers of this column are likely well aware of Keillor’s live radio variety show, which features musical guests of almost every genre (but in particular, traditional folk, blues, jazz, and gospel), devastating comedy skits, old fashioned radio drama themes, commercials from fictitious products, and the storytelling skills of Keillor, its host.

A Prairie Home Companion‘s first show took place in 1974 with an audience of 12 people, and after a couple of shifts in venues and a two-year hiatus in the late 1980s, over four million people tune in every Saturday evening on over 500 public radio stations in the United States. The show is also broadcast in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Europe, on the Armed Forces Radio Network, Sirius Satellite Radio, and an online stream.

While I’m sure there is a humongous group of fans who plan their Saturday nights around the broadcast and have never missed a single show, my own listening patterns are probably the norm for many. If I’m in the car and I know it’s on, I’ll find a station on the left side of the dial so I that can listen. Occasionally, but not too often, I’ll tune in while at home. I’ve also been in the audience on several occasions in St. Paul and New York, and screened Robert Altman’s film of the same name about 50 times.

There are also about ten or so albums that my two kids grew up listening to. Any car trip lasting an hour or more would always be an opportunity to hear some “News from Lake Wobegone” or an episode of “Guy Noir, Private Detective.” We liked to listen to the the Hopeful Gospel Quartet, the Duets and anniversary albums, and the three-disc Comedy Theater set that also includes many of the great commercials. I like to think that we were an A Prairie Home Companion family, despite periods of diversion with Radio Disney and Weird Al.

When Keillor announced his retirement this past June, and named Nickel Creek co-founder and Punch Brothers founder Chris Thile as host, I had a hard time imagining how the program could continue with a musician at the helm instead of a storyteller and humorist of Keillor’s magnitude, style, and wit. It was only this week that I realized that, as we head into the 2016-2017 season, things on this show are going to change. That realization gave me an overwhelming feeling of the loss of a trusty old friend, who’s there when you need them. It made me scramble to grab tickets to the New York City road shows before it all goes away … and it triggered a panic attack of sorts.

In a recent interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Keillor noted he’ll be around all of this season. He will do some co-hosting with Thile, and he’ll continue as executive producer next season. He also spoke a bit about Thile, who made his first appearance on the show 19 years ago at the age of 15.

“He’s a brilliant musician. He’s just an amazing musician. Beyond that, he’s a good-hearted, outgoing person, much more than I. The show will have a solid musical foundation. We started out as a music show and then other things were added to it. And this new incarnation will evolve in the same way. We’re looking for writers to create some new serial business and we’ll see. The door is open to all kinds of comedians, sketch writers — interesting, dorky people who write comedy.”

For his part, Thile told the Burlington Free Press that he’s still formulating ideas on how A Prairie Home Companion will change once he settles into the host role, but he expects it will reflect a musician is in charge. “He’s [Keillor] created something that will stand the test of time,” he told that paper. “I look forward to taking that and running with it. Since I’m a musician there will probably be more music, but as an ardent admirer of the show I will strive not to mess it up for anyone.”

All this talk about music, specifically, is pretty exciting, and it goes far beyond the weekly radio performance platform. Look around at most roots music gigs — festivals, house concerts, clubs, church basements, parks, wherever, whatever — and you’ll notice a sea of us with gray hair, who buy the tickets and crowd around the merch tables. We are the aging fan base, and while Thile represents hundreds of younger performers who are carrying forward and building on the traditional music, there also needs to be a generational change in the audience. Putting my trust in Keillor and Thile, I’m starting to feel as if A Prairie Home Companion could be the starting point of a significant musical paradigm shift. And with that, my panic attack is subsiding.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

Photo credit: Claudia Danielson

Sony Music Pushes Bob Dylan Over the Edge

Sandwiched between the daily news of murder, mayhem, and politics, comes a media blitz and social network Bing! Bing! Bing! that Sony Music Entertainment will be releasing not one, not two, but three variations of the latest in Bob Dylan’s never-ending studio outakes excavation. The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Volume 12 will be released on November 6, in the St. Nick of time for the holiday gift giving season.

To break it down: you’ve got your basic run-of-the-mill Deluxe Edition of six discs (or the digital equivalent), and a cheapo-cheapo two-disc “best of” variation that will also be offered on 180-gram pure, virginal, black-as-night vinyl. But the excitement really builds for the Collectors Edition Box Set pictured here, which gives you 16 alternate versions and four master track mixes of “Like A Rolling Stone,” along with multiple variations of a few dozen other songs that were originally rejected for one reason or another. Retail price: $599.99.

The Big Bambino of Bobby’s Box Sets will be peddled only via Dylan’s website, and it comes to mind that this investment opportunity — a keepsake for your family to both enjoy now and to pass down through generations — not only has the look and feel of one of those 1980s K-Tel Records’ AS SEEN ON TV commercials, but the ad copy sounds like it as well:

Limited, numbered edition of 5,000 units world wide!
Every note recorded by Bob Dylan in the studio in 1965/1966!
379 tracks on 18 discs!
170 page hardcover 11” X 11” book!
Certificate of Authenticity!

I have to admit, I’ve added the exclamation points for emphasis. But wait! There’s more! Buy now while supplies last, and you get these SPECIAL BONUS FEATURES!

Hotel room recordings from London, Glasgow and Denver!
The original nine mono 45 RPM singles released during the time period!
A leopard skin printed spindle! (Seriously … it’s just too good to make this stuff up.)
A strip of film cells from an original print of the Don’t Look Back film!

Perhaps for the uber-Dylan fanatic and completist — or a hedge fund manager who will buy everything under the sun simply because they can — spending well over $600 (there’s sales tax and shipping charges to be applied) might seem like an easy choice. For the rest of us who live in the real world, and have bought and owned at least six various configurations of every major album that Dylan has put out, it’s likely to not even make a blip on the radar screen of things we can’t live without.

Should you think I’m not a fan myself, you’d be wrong. My collection includes original mono recordings, stereo mixes, remasters, greatest hits, compilations, oddities, live shows, unauthorized vinyl, and countless books. At the moment I’m coming within striking distance of the final chapter of Elijah Wald’s Dylan Goes Electric, which I’ve found to be an exceptional read. When I’m in the mood for a little Dylan these days, it’s often the Bootleg Series that will draw me in, as I find most of the volumes to be a welcome and refreshing additive. But after last year’s six-disc Basement Tapes Complete, I’m just done. There isn’t enough time, interest, willpower, energy, or money to pay this release one iota of attention. (Except for this one rumination.)

Before I let you go, it seems that it might best to offer an opposing view. Here’s what Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times says about this project:

Record companies are often justly criticized for strip-mining their catalogs out of desperation for cash because it’s become so difficult to break new artists. This, however, appears to be an example of legitimate exploration of the context out of which three of rock music’s most important albums emerged a half century ago.

We’ll stay tuned for a more in-depth report on this project.

As we eagerly await Randy’s further investigation, heed my advice and don’t fall for the hype. Neither Dylan nor Sony needs the dough. You can stream it for next to nothing, and box sets just add clutter to your home and get really dusty. If need be, I’d be willing to come over to your house, bring my guitar and harps, and personally perform the entire 1960s repertoire for you in exchange for a simple hot meal and travel expenses. Lucky you.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

A Note of Thanks to Lucinda Williams

Had I stuck to my plan, you’d likely be reading about the emergence of cowboy hats in roots music, after the genre enjoyed a brief fling with the fedora. Coupled with prairie couture, this year has seen a subtle shift in fashion and style among the younger set in particular, and it seemed to be a topic of interest that I am admittedly and imminently unprepared and unqualified to speak of. While I was nevertheless going to regale you with the history of the Stetson and bring in scientific theory as to why the ten-gallon hat holds only three quarts of liquid, a postscript to this year’s award show at the Americana Music Festival felt like it should take precedent.

I’m sure some of you already have heard that Lucinda Williams, along with her co-producers Tom Overby and Greg Leisz, received the album of the year honors for Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, her sprawling and sparkling collection of 20 songs that clocks in at 135 minutes or thereabouts. It’s an album that has received much praise from music writers and bloggers on websites such as this, as well as in daily newspapers and monthly magazines. In his review that was published last year in The New York Times, Ben Ratliff wrote:

She’s pithy and penetrating, bruised but steadfast, proud of the grain and drawl of her voice. Her music places itself in a vanishing, idealized Southland where country, soul, blues and gospel all share a common spirit and a vocabulary of twang, and where life lessons can be delivered by a bar band.

Her new songs are full of advice, empathy and testimony to obstacles that have been overcome, or will be.

Fred Mills at Blurt described the album as “a snapshot — or feature-length film, take your pick — of a 61-year old woman fully renewed and at the height of her creative powers.” And Andy Gill at The Independent said that it “may be the best work of her career, a compelling survey of love and life to challenge the bitter insights of West and World without Tears.”

As these reviews mirrored my own listening experience, it pleased me to hear the news of this recognition. Williams is a beloved outlier who I connected with through her self-titled Rough Trade cassette, and Overby is an old friend. Admittedly I don’t usually pay close attention to polls and awards, and the concept that there is just one song, one album, or one artist that is better than the rest sort of gnaws at me.

There was a time in my life where I could argue for hours about the merits of one album over another. I was very opinionated about what I felt was good or bad, to the point where speaking or writing in a condescending tone was my default position. Somewhere along the line, I became agnostic in my relationship toward music. In other words, its all good. Or, an even better way to say it: it’s all respected.

It never ceases to astonish me that a series or pattern of notes, words, and/or beats can create a highly individualized emotional and physical experience. This past year, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone took me exactly to the space that the title promised. You can figure out for yourself if you think it was the best or not. For me, it’s just another reason why I love music. And while I’ve got no trophy to hand out, this will have to serve as my own thank you note for a job well done.

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

On America, Xenophobia and Los Lobos: Dream In Blue

Today in America, there is a demagogue who spends much of his time whipping pale-faced crowds into a frenzy of fear and hate with xenophobic speeches that have been designed to distort reality. That reality is that we are a nation of many colors that has nourished and embraced multi-cultural influences and diversity for generations. Against a backdrop of nonstop news-tainment that assaults our senses on a daily basis and fogs the political landscape with opinions and analyses from pundits that create much ado about nothing comes a new book about a band of musicians who have spent over four decades making music that has helped to break down the walls between us. Like a pin stuck in a balloon that releases a rush of hot air, Los Lobos: Dream In Blue by Chris Morris is a riveting historical narrative that speaks as much to the American experience as it does to the music.

Morris is a respected journalist, disc jockey, and ethnomusicologist whom I’ve known since the mid-’80s, when he was covering the independent music beat for Billboard magazine. He is an eyewitness to Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles’ early journey into the Hollywood club scene, and the music highways and byways that they’ve travelled down through the years. Using their recording career as his lantern, Morris lets the story of this band be told in their own words, with the inclusion of interviews from collaborators and his own insightful observations and memories. Published this month by the University of Texas Press, it should be of interest to many that Dream In Blue is from the American Music Series whose editors are David Menconi and No Depression co-founder Peter Blackstock.

Earlier this summer, on the banks of the Hudson River an hour north of Manhattan, I stood in a steady rain by the side of the stage and felt an incredible energy that Los Lobos unleashed with their afternoon set at the Clearwater Festival. It was impossible to keep still as my feet and body joined those around me in a 45-minute tribal dance of both young and old. The music they create is a language we can all speak and understand, and like using the phrase “rooted and rocked” when I describe them to the uninitiated. If you’ve seen them live, you already know they rock. But if you don’t know their story, you miss the roots.

Dream in Blue takes you back into time, until the light turns on inside your head and you understand that Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano, David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, and Steve Berlin are not simply outliers from La Raza, East of Los Angeles (though Berlin grew up in Philadelphia, as did I), but that the music they make is influenced by the same baby boomer FM radio shows and TV shows, like Ed Sullivanand Shindig, that many of us grew up with. Both Rosas and Hildalgo are quoted about what they were listening to as teens, and it mirrors my own East Coast, white-bred exposure. The Stones, the Beatles, Presley, Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Aretha, Sam and Dave, James Brown, Canned Heat, Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, Incredible String Band. It’s an alphabetical musical soup, the diversion — with my own Deadhead path — occurs in the early ’70s when they tapped into their Hispanic lineage at the height of the Chicano renaissance in Los Angeles and started playing folk music with traditional instruments at parties, weddings, and restaurants.

How Los Lobos navigated the move to performing electric in front of the Mohawk-hair generation, enjoyed success with the soundtrack from La Bamba, dealt with music business missteps and never stopped experimenting and collaborating is a fascinating tale. The book was a fast read for me; I was unable to put it down. Morris excels at keeping the storyline moving with equal measures of factlets and anecdotes.

The book was also successful in getting me to do something I’ve been putting off for too long: taking the time to listen to Los Lobos’ catalog again — including their new album, Gates of Gold — and watching their videos. Perhaps more important, Dream in Blue brings into sharper focus a truer narrative of what growing up and being successful in America looks like. And it sure ain’t about building walls.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com

Angela Easterling and My No Depression Friends

From the Angela Easterling Facebook Page

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column. Although many fans of the roots music/Americana/alt-country or whatever other genre you want to call it remember the magazine of the same name, it ceased publication back in 2008 and was replaced by an online entity. Shortly after it started up I began to submit articles, reviews, observations and ramblins’. Back then, everything on the website was community content…meaning it was submitted by and for like-minded (sometimes) music fans. In time things changed; the original publisher sold it to FreshGrass and it’s gone through significant transition of design elements, paid content (like my Broadside column) and that old-timey community feel where people of common interests met and exchanged ideas. Angela Easterling is one of those people.

This week many of us will open our mailboxes and receiving the first print edition of No Depression in seven years. And while it may not necessarily replicate the same experience that longtime readers of the magazine’s previous print run had back in the day, I anticipate that it’s likely to be the best reasonable facsimile that one could ever hope for. And when the accolades to all of the people who worked hard to put words back onto paper fades out, and the complaints of “it ain’t the same thing as the old thing” go blowing into the wind, it might be best to stand back for a moment and marvel at the house that Peter, Grant, and Kyla built. For it’s neither simply the ink on paper nor words on a computer screen that have been sown from the seeds of ND’s two decades of existence, but a new generation of musicians, fans, pundits, critics, archivists, writers, readers, videographers, composers, lyricists, creators, aggregators, and networkers that have created a cultural community that seems to endure and thrive.

I met Angela Easterling on this website shortly after it launched in early 2009. Back then there seemed to be just a few hundred of us post-print, zombie-like survivors who bothered to log on, read whatever there was to read, watch videos, post content, and hope that something would come out of it. Peter and Grant were both submitting articles in the beginning, Kyla was focused on building advertising revenue from the embers of a scorched music retail landscape, and Kim Ruehl (who’s now the editor of ND) was scouting for articles and reviews by encouraging both professional writers and amateur hacks such as myself to contribute. Unlike the “letters to the editor” that the old school magazines printed in each edition, these new online articles had a comments section that allowed for immediate feedback, which included expansion of original thoughts, corrections and arguments, raging controversies and, ultimately, friendships. Instant karma.

Angela had recently moved back to South Carolina after spending time in the Los Angeles area attending school, and I think she had already put out her first album in 2007. We had conversations in the comment sections, and when I began to post articles, we connected on Facebook and got to know each other beyond just our musical interests. She was one of the first people to send me a CD (BlackTop Road) and ask if I might like to write about it it, but Michael Bialas beat me to the punch and posted his review in August of 2009.

For the next few years, I watched Angela personify the DIY spirit by traveling on the road from gig to gig, recording and releasing her albums without benefit of a record label or distribution team, competing at festivals, knocking down radio station doors, and using social media to not only gain fans but make friends. When I posted a story in April 2011 about independent musicians and the difficult times they faced while they tried to make a living, she set me straight:

I get a bit tired of people who want to commiserate with me and try to tell me how terrible my life is because I’m an indie musician. ‘Oh it’s sooo hard, you work so long and for so little money etc., etc.’, they say. Yes, it is a lot of work, there are parts of it that aren’t always fun and I’m not always thrilled with the progress I’m making and/or my finances. Rest assured, you are not informing me of something I don’t already know. But nobody tied me down and made me do this. I absolutely love what I do and I feel so lucky and blessed to be living this life.

As the years have rolled on, I’ve watched as Angela fought to keep her family’s farm — where she lives today. I’ve put up with her Boston Red Sox and Mad Men fan-girl rants, read her intimate thoughts posted on Facebook about life, love and family, celebrated birthdays and career highlights, engaged in political and environmental discussions, listened to and loved her music, and got to share in her happiness when she and her guitarist Brandon Turner began a committed relationship. They now have a little boy they each adore, and last week they announced that she was expecting again. With her new album Common Law Wife getting strong airplay on Americana format radio and moving rapidly up the charts, as great reviews are coming in almost every day, I’m guessing that Angela must feel as if she’s won a double header against the Yankees.

I heard “Hammer” back in January 2015 and told Angela that I thought it was one of the best songs she’s ever written. By March, I had the complete album, and it immediately got lost in our apartment until the end of the month. By April I was playing it every day in the car and couldn’t wait to share it. But, considering its August release date, I held off. Over time, I moved on. Until this week. I’ve been thinking about her, the growing family, the music she’s been making and how she has moved through the years with dignity and grace. Like I mentioned, the reviews have been exceptional and with a couple of months of touring in front of her, it feels like it’s her time to break through to a wider audience.

When people think of No Depression, they often reminisce about the magazine and talk about the great articles, reviews, and graphics. They talk about the story of how a musically like-minded community came together for a period of time in the mid-’90s and held on tight for 13 years until the original magazine came to an end and morphed into … whatever this is. And while I am sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation of the new print edition, its really been the people I’ve met along the way that makes this whole thing so special and unique for me. And my friend Angela Easterling is one of those people.

This article was originally published as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column over at No Depression: The Journal of Roots Music.

Many of my past columns, articles, and essays can be accessed here at my own site, therealeasyed.com. I also aggregate news and videos on both Flipboard and Facebook as The Real Easy Ed: Americana Roots Music Daily. My Twitter handle is @therealeasyed and my email is easyed@therealeasyed.com