There are good songs, and then there are feel good songs. Public radio music stations specialize in the latter, especially new tracks by emerging artists that make you stop what you’re doing and smile. Nearly everyone could use a potent dose of positivity after 2023, so we asked NPR Member stations to share the songs that made their DJs feel …
Allison Russell Wants to Make Waves
2021 was not, technically, the first year Allison Russell played the Newport Folk Festival. Russell had previously taken the stage at what’s long been a venerated showcase of bearers and updaters of tradition with her bands Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters, but never before as a solo artist. And never with as bright a spotlight as the one …
Allison Russell | Tiny Desk Concert
“I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses,” said Allison Russell during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band’s harmoniousness in the year she’s been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child, which tells the singer’s life story, from her childhood escaping …
How Black women reclaimed country and Americana music in 2021
If 2020 was the kickstart of a reckoning—of country/Americana music (and, really, all of America) being forced to come to terms with its history of racism and exclusion—2021 was the year of reclamation. Even as sustainable, systemic change remains elusive, Black women, in particular, have leveraged the power of streaming platforms and social media to bridge the chasms previously carved …