Depression

An incomplete roll call of regional acts that made it into the pages of ND would include not only DeMent but also Mike Ireland and Holler, Howard Iceberg and the Titanics, Hadacol, the Wilders, Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys, the Bindlestiffs, the Starkweathers, Split Lip Rayfield, the Domino Kings, the Morells, the Original Sinners and Jeff Black.

All of those acts, as well as the hundreds more who were featured in the magazine over the years, could count on No Depression to provide the consistent notice they knew they'd never get anywhere else — and that they needed if they were to build a career.

And the worthiest among them saw those careers essayed at unheard-of lengths: A cover story I wrote last year on Porter Wagoner ran to 9,000 words! It's hard to imagine just where any of these artists will ever be taken so seriously again.

The magazine never grew into its somewhat grandiose new cover tag, "Surveying the Past, Present and Future of American Music," but it came closer to that mark than any other rag in the rack, and I think it was always headed in the right direction. Now, "barring the intercession of unknown angels" (to quote the latest issue) and excepting whatever limited version of the magazine may continue online, No Depression will head only in the direction of the sunset.

Like a really great country weeper or soul lament, it breaks my heart.

Kansas City writer David Cantwell is the co-author of Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles