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Article published May 23, 2008 Over the Rhine lights the way for fans during turbulent times
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
It was a phone call no one wants to receive, but it strengthened the connection between the members of Over the Rhine and they’re already-devoted fans.
The husband-wife duo of Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist were on tour with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco; after performing at The Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville, the musicians put on an amazing show at Nashville’s fabled Ryman Auditorium. They packed up and headed to Birmingham, Ala., for the next performance.
Then came the phone call. And suddenly, Detweiler’s world was thrown into upheaval.
“I got the call that my dad had died,” Detweiler told The Daily Times during a recent phone interview. “We turned around and drove through the night back to Ohio, and a few days later, my family asked me to write my father’s obituary. I feel kind of shocked to say that it’s the first time I’ve had to bury somebody really close to me — I’ve been spared that in my life, so now I’m continuing through this new terrain that I’m not familiar with. It’s a feeling like I’ve sort of been punched in the gut.
“My dad was a character that lived really large in my own story. He was the one who brought the upright piano home and made the first recordings of my music; he was a huge encouragement to me when I was first getting started as a kid on the piano.”
In the aftermath of his father’s death, however, Detweiler discovered a new perspective that offered comfort. For years, the fans of Over the Rhine have written the duo love letters about how much their music means. For thousands of people, the couple’s songs have served as a backdrop to weddings, births and funerals. Those who feel the stirrings of the soul when Bergquist’s angelic voice floats from the speakers and when Detweiler’s intricate skills on a variety of instruments set the tone have made Over the Rhine a mile marker along life’s highway.
Now, for perhaps the first time, Detweiler saw things from a similar perspective.
“Now, when somebody comes up and says, ‘I lost my mother this spring, and your music has been really important to my partner and I during this time’ — now, knowing what this feels like and knowing that our music was useful to someone during a difficult time like that, it boggles my mind a little bit,” he said. “It boggles my mind that I can participate in someone’s story like that, and it’s exceedingly humbling. It seems like a real honor that people seem to want to make our music part of the so-called ‘big moments’ — the loss of a loved one, people taking the records to the hospital and giving birth with our music somewhere in close proximity.”
From the beginning, however, fans recognized something different in the couple, which took its name from a color neighborhood of Cincinnati, where they started performing. For Detweiler and Bergquist, it was always an intimate affair, an invitation from their hearts to those of fans who would hear them. Stages were lit with candles, and playful, handwritten newsletters were sent out to those who signed up.
A lot of it had to do with the interplay between the two. Detweiler can coax intimate, jazz- and American-inflected sounds from almost any instrument, and Bergquist’s vocals are hard to pin down — Rickie Lee Jones springs to mind, but such a comparison doesn’t do her justice. Throw in a little Edith Piaf and a smidgen of Gillian Welch and you get a little closer, but her vocals are in a class all their own.
Not long after getting started, MCA offered the two a publishing deal, and within months, they were opening a handful of shows for Bob Dylan around the Midwest. Eleven recordings later, Over the Rhine claims a musical kinship with the Cowboy Junkies, who named Bergquist and Detweiler honorary members, and has seen its music referenced by name in such shows as “The X-Files” and “Angel.” Sarah McLachlan once tracked down Bergquist to let her know she was a fan, and the band’s 2001 album “Films for Radio” sold more copies in Paris than it did in the entire state of Ohio.
Each album, it seems, is more critically acclaimed than the last. Detweiler credits the duo’s honesty with their connection to fans. For “The Trumpet Child,” released last year, the two went in a more jazz-oriented direction, a sound that was reflective of more upbeat spirits.
“On our last few records, we felt we had cornered the market in terms of melancholy, so we wanted to bottle some joy on ‘The Trumpet Child,’” he said. “We were in a good place, so we wanted to throw a little musical party. We felt it was time to get out of the house and get some fresh blood involved in the music. When we first started, we had a gig moonlighting at a hotel, and we played a lot of standards and tunes from the Great American Songbook — Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael and musicians like that.
“We had a chance to absorb that music, and even though we weren’t jazz musicians per se, we really enjoyed how playful those writers were with language and how the instrumentation was more experimental and varied back then. We just decided we were ready to tip our hats to that era on this project and just lighten it up a bit.”
The two flew to Nashville to record “The Trumpet Child,” using a hodge-podge of “misfit jazz musicians,” Detweiler said — older guys who had relocated to Music City from Los Angeles and New York who helped add an urban element to the music that’s reflective of a smoky velvet night in an old cabaret, where the singer is blinding in her beauty and the piano player pounds through everything from torch ballads to burlesque boogies.
Wednesday, the duo returns to The Bijou Theatre for a headlining gig. “The Trumpet Child” is first and foremost on the agenda, but the group will be pulling from its back catalogue as well, Detweiler said. After all, Wednesday’s performance comes only a few days after the band performs its 2003 double-album, “Ohio,” in its entirety for a special venue opening. The contrast will be obvious but not jarring, something that spotlights just how versatile the two musicians can be.
“‘Ohio’ was about celebrating the music Karin and I grew up with — old country and Western, gospel and that sort of working-class rock ‘n’ roll like CCR,” he said. “We really tried to go back and mix that gospel music with rock ‘n’ roll and country and get it into a messy Midwestern melting pot, and ‘Ohio’ grew out of that. Over time, it became a special record for us, and our listeners are still connected to it as well.
“We try to mix six or seven songs from ‘Ohio,’ depending on the venue or the night, but we’re focused on the music we’ve just released, and we’re lucky to have an audience that’s with us on that. They love to hear the old stuff, but they’re more about where the band is growing and taking that journey with us.”
And as long as those fans continue to identify so intimately with what Bergquist and Detweiler compose — whether it’s from a record that’s 10 years old or one put out last fall — it makes the journey worthwhile, he added.
“Fiscally, it can be a challenge to take a band and a crew out for an extended period of time,” he said. “Fortunately, we can make a modest living at it, but it’s not easy. But when people are connecting so deeply to the music, it makes it worthwhile.”