Uncle Tupelo

• Genre: Alt Country
• Hometown: Bellville
• Uncle Tupelo Website

About

This landmark power trio from Belleville, Ill., released their debut full-length album in 1990. Named after an old A.P. Carter dustbowl standard, No Depression eventually gave birth to an entire sub-genre of Alt Country music. Although Uncle Tupelo were not the first insurgent country band, their successful fusion of country's honest, heartfelt emotion with Punk's brash angst and sonic temper tantrums made more sense to young listeners than the work of any other Indie Rock bands mining traditional American music. Uncle Tupelo were founded by life-long friends Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, who signed on to the independent Rockville label in 1989 and released four albums before splitting up five years later. The bipolar soul of Uncle Tupelo resurfaced in Tweedy's more power pop-influenced Wilco and Farrar's Adult Alternative version of Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt.

- Eric Shea