Coyote Motel – The River: A Songwriter’s Stories Of The South
Self-release
12 songs – 56 minutes
The River: A Songwriter’s Stories Of The South is the soundtrack to a feature film of the same name, starring the Nashville-based cosmic roots band, Coyote Motel. Both the movie and the music explore lives, lore and locales touched by or dependent on three great rivers of the American South: the Mississippi, the Cumberland, and the Tallahatchie.
Both the film and the album are the brainchild of bandleader, Ted Drozdowski, whose 2019 release, Coyote Motel, was warmly reviewed by Blues Blast in 2019. Drozdowski then formed the band that he named after his own album. The result is this fascinating album that happily mashes together Hill Country blues, blues-rock and psychedelia, with pinches of country and folk to create something really quite different and hugely enjoyable.
Anthony DeCurtis’s excellent CD liner notes explore how culture works both on an individual level and in the currents that carry us through life. Likewise, the songs on The River explore the boundaries between the personal and the community, the internal and the external, contemplating the ways in which history, geography and society impact us all. The “River” that is the album’s title is both a literal geographic feature and a metaphorical life journey.
The lyrics reference both the rivers (the title track and “The River Runs Forever”) and the floods that are inevitable near any river of size (“Tupelo”). Other songs examine muleskinners, coal miners (Drozdowski’s own immigrant grandparents, whom he never met – on “Black Lung Fever”), riverboat gambler and musical giants of the region. “The River Runs Forever” actually recounts the tale of Ernest Willis, who apparently lived for decades beneath the Memphis-Arkansas bridge, relying on the river for his livelihood.
The music, with 10 tracks plus two radio edits, is as dynamic, vast, fluid and irresistible as the titular rivers. The title track has echoes of Led Zeppelin in its understanding of light and shade. While the ominous “Long Distance Runner” even hints at classic Pink Floyd. Unexpected directions are taken. Unusual sounds are chased (check out the angry insect buzz of “Trouble”). And while there are no straight blues songs on The River, the blues informs every song, particularly on tracks like “Black Lung Fever” with its Hill Country finger-picked opening. There is a constant sense of being back in the late 1960s or very early 1970s, musically speaking, with exploration, improvisation and no boundaries left un-pushed.
Coyote Motel comprises Drozdowski on vocals, guitar and diddley bow, Sean Zywick on bass, Kyra Lachelle Curenton on drums, Luella on vocals, guitar and percussion, and Laurie Hoffma on Theremin and glockenspiel. The band produced the album, which was engineered, mixed and mastered by Mike Purcell at County Q Productions, Nashville, TN. Drozdowski wrote all the songs other than the traditional “Homecoming”.
The River is a fascinating and very entertaining album. Fans of classic blues-rock and late 60s psychedelia will find it particularly enjoyable.
