“Speak Up!” digs into the long tradition of roots music as a voice for the voiceless, a tool for social change, and a universal language. The issue contains essays by artists, who have written about how they’ve used music to speak up – for themselves, for others, and for issues that concern us all. There’s a deep exploration of race in country music, a history of music programs in prisons, a conversation with John Prine about how his story-songs have changed minds, and retrospectives about how speaking up cost artists like the Weavers and the Dixie Chicks a large portion of their audience. 

Long Features

• What happened to the Weavers?
• A conversation with John Prine
• Jail Guitar Doors USA and music in Texas prisons
• Thirteen years since the Dixie Chicks’ stage banter heard ‘round the world
• Exploring race in country music 

Short Features

• Johnny Dowd and Hamell on Trial
• Chuck Hawthorne
• Anais Mitchell’s “Hadestown”
• An organizing history of “We Shall Overcome”
• Erin McKeown and Kaia Kater
• Chely Wright
• The Kennedys
• How rising rents affect artists
• Little Village Foundation
• How artists respond to controversial laws

Photos/Art

• Political Cartoons from the Woody Guthrie Archive
• Photographs from Todd Gunsher, C. Elliott, Kirk Stauffer, Amos Perrine, and Steve Ford
• Illustration by Drew Christie, Howard Rains, and Alexie Hoffman
• Cover art by Woody Guthrie