Road Trip Music: Ohio

A place of change and challenge, testing and opportunity, successful experiments and failed ones, exploring new ways of living and seeing how familiar ones would work beyond the edges of civilization: this was the Ohio River Valley in the early years of the American republic. As the Great American Road Trip winds through the state of Ohio, the soundtrack comprises a set of songs about the people who ventured to that frontier, and how they faced the challenges the found there. It is an album called Wilderness Plots..


Tim Grimm was in a bookstore one day, and came across a pocket sized book called Wilderness Plots, by Scott Russell Sanders. It was a series of short one and two page vignettes of moments in people’s lives from the early days of the Ohio Valley which Sanders had created from his notes from research for a novel set in the Ohio county where he was born. Drawn by the vivid stories, Grimm started hearing songs in them. He took the idea to a group of songwriters he knew, a group who met regularly to exchange ideas and share progress in their writing. Tom Roznowski, Michael White, Carrie Newcomer, and Krista Detor were the other songwriters in the group.

All of them live in the Ohio Valley, in southern Indiana, so both place and story resonated with each of them. Each is a professional musician, a songwriter who values both word and melody, but their styles and interests are varied. They decided to use stories in the book as workshop challenge, at first. Over time, that evolved into the idea of an album.

In the songs, Roznowski tells of the dreams of a man who looks at the wilderness and sees bustling cities rising; White sees people both afraid and intrigued as they marvel over recent inexplicable discoveries; Detor tells of a couple finding their way and testing their marriage at the edge of the wilderness, and, in another song, gives voice to a woman’s hopes for her children in a time of great change; Grimm looks at the life of an itinerant preacher who struggles with mending his own faith while he mends shoes to make a living; Newcomer, in two very different songs, finds a woman caught in the hard changes frontier life sometimes brings, and another who risks standing up to make a things different.

It’s a project filled with memorable people, situations both serious and funny, and connections of history and present day, in styles which move across the range of Americana music . The nineteen cuts on the album make a fine bit of listening for travels through Ohio, and chances are, you’ll remember the characters and the songs long after the album ends.

Though their schedules do not often permit them to perform together, the songwriters have done concerts based on the material on the album. Seeing one of these, producer Susanne Schwibs at WTIU at Indiana University had the idea to make a television program. It’s framed loosely as a songwriters in the round session, filled with interesting music, great ideas on songwriting process, and thoughts on the intersections of landscape and history in the Ohio Valley. It is available as a dvd.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: Voices: Carrie Newcomer: faith and laughter

video of an ensemble piece from Wilderness Plots



This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I’m partnering up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’ll find there. Stop by and see A Traveler’s Library what has in mind to inspire travels through Ohio.
For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

Darwin Song Project

Darwin Song Project

Charles Darwin's scientific ideas on the origin of humans and the evolution of species have been the subject of controversy for more than one hundred fifty years. To eight songwriters invited to collaborate on making songs inspired by Darwin and his legacy, though, it was Darwin the husband, the father, the adventurer, and the ministerial student turned scientist wrestling with faith who proved most compelling.

Not that they ignored the impact of his science on the rest of the world. The songs they created took in a range of subjects as wide as their own backgrounds Krista Detor, Jez Lowe, Mark Erelli, Rachael McShane, Chris Wood, Stu Hanna, Karine Polwart, and Emily Smith were invited to spend a week at a farmhouse in rural Shropshire, England, not far from where Darwin himself lived, collaborting on songs. A kicker in the invitation was that they’d come up with enough music to fill an evening’s concert -- a concert which they learned was already sold out, and would recorded for an album and filmed for broadcast.

Another item in the mix was that most of the songwriters were not acquainted with each other, or each other’s music, before the week began. Each comes from the folk genre, but that encompasses a whole range of things, in this case including Lowe’s leftist political commentary, Detor’s enigmatic and indirect mystical reflections, and Smith’s lyrical ballads based in Scottish tradition. It was an adventure for all involved.

The result -- heard in the recording made at the live concert -- shows that they've created songs anchored in the details of Darwin’s life and ideas yet which reach beyond that to universal resonance. There’s the young man setting out on his round the world voyage, excited but not without his doubts. There are people reacting and offering their comments on his published ideas, among them a merchant puzzling out his way and an indignant woman claiming no one will make a monkey out of her. Darwin’s own doubts and faith, and the thoughts of his wife Emma as they seek to love past their differences in belief, come into focus in several songs. There’s a mystical look at time and change, both constants in Darwin's story, a funny song in which the scientist is cast as the villain in a wild west sort of tale, and a sort of hymn where faith and doubt meet and reconcile in respect for love and the unknown.

Impressions of Darwin rather than narrative, the songs show the high levels of imagination and musicality of the eight who collaborated to make them. The energy and connection of their live performance comes across strongly in the recording, with gorgeous harmonies and well thought out lead singing and playing. You do not have to agree or disagree with Charles Darwin's ideas -- or know anything about them, for that matter -- to find much to think about and much to enjoy in the ideas and the music these artists offer.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Best Music, 2009

Music Road: now playing: Emily Smith: Too Long Away

Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.