Shure

Over The Rhine

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The Long Surrender, the new studio album from the southern Ohio-based husband-and-wife team of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Linford Detweiler and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Karin Bergquist, otherwise known as Over the Rhine, is something rare and wondrous — an intimate epic. Shot through with the joys and sorrows of modern-day existence and the unchanging fundaments of the human condition, the album has the feel of a living thing, senses alert, feet planted firmly on terra firma.

The album title “speaks to our ongoing desire to let go of certain expectations (and much of what we are so convinced we know for sure) in favor of remaining open and curious,” Karin explains. “It seems like many of our friends are currently wrestling with various forms of ‘letting go,’ so hopefully, the ideas conjured by the title feel somewhat universal. And I think the title speaks to the arc of a lifelong commitment to writing and performing regardless of recognition. Learning when to work hard and when to let go. Learning to leave room for grace to billow our sails occasionally. Learning not to white-knuckle everything.”

The fan-funded record, to be released on OtR’s own Great Speckled Dog label (named after the couple’s Great Dane, Elroy), will see the light of day 20 years after their 1991 debut. It’s the bountiful result of a collaboration between the couple and producer Joe Henry, whose songs and recordings they’ve long admired. “Joe has been quietly making records (well, not that quietly; he has won at least two Grammys) that don’t sound like other records being made in 2010,” Linford points out. “They are a little bit dark and cinematic and funky and unpredictable. It seems like he loves to help performers who have already covered a lot of miles — people like Mavis Staples, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Solomon Burke, Loudon Wainwright III, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Mose Allison — rediscover the soul of what they do in new light.” The Long Surrender was recorded at Henry’s Garfield House Studio in South Pasadena.

On Monday, May 17, Detweiler and Bergquist arrived at the Garfield House for the first day of recording. By Friday afternoon, the album was complete. “We walked away feeling like we had just experienced the week of a lifetime,” says Linford. The near-miraculous speed with which it was made is attributable in large part to the song-serving musicians Henry had intuitively chosen for the project: drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist David Piltch, pedal steel and all-things-stringed player Greg Leisz, keyboard sound-scapists Keefus Ciancia and Patrick Warren and Joe’s son Levon on tenor sax, along with soul singers James Gilstrap, Niki Haris and Jean McClain. This simpatico posse didn’t so much surround Karin and Linford as meld with them and their songs. “They were all wonderful conjurers and co-conspirators,” Linford marvels. “A significant number of the tracks on the record are first takes. We landed ’em like glistening, silvery fish, everyone playing together, Karin singing (and often playing) live with the band for every take.”

As Joe puts it, “We settled for . . . luminance over order, for terse beauty and a smeared-lipstick brand of soul; for spot-welding over handicraft; for leaving ‘the edges wild,’ as Linford’s father had once so richly advised him, and for never comparing this particular journey to any other. I hear this batch of songs now the way the last one of them, “All of My Favorite People,” seems to see the world: as naked in its finery, fiercely tender, and thorny with sweet promise; as heroically humbled, and broken to the point of availing true light to anyone who cares to look inside . . . I am not in the business of dispelling mysteries, only abiding with them when invited. Mystery is life’s strange and glorious weather, so to speak. And this time, Over the Rhine brought it with them.”