Sun 12/16 @ 7PM
Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine started as a folk-rock ensemble 30 years ago in the midst of the heyday of that sound, when bands like 10,000 Maniacs and the Innocence Mission, as well as Cleveland bands such as the Walk-Ins, were performing wistful, melodic music with acoustic underpinnings. After three albums on I.R.S./EMI in the mid 1990s, the band pared down to the husband & wife duo of Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist who have continued to put out new work regularly, most recently on their own Great Speckled Dog label.
There’s something about their haunting, nostalgia-laden that seems oddly suited for Christmas. Their tunes ache with yearning for beauty, love and the comfort of home, family and friends, and often reverberate with the sadness of those yearnings unfulfilled. The three holiday albums they’ve released in the last 20 years, Detweiler says, “conjure up an unusual mix of feelings from childhood: innocence, loss, wonder, joy, sadness.”
While they make their home in rural southwest Ohio, they make frequent trips to the Cleveland area where they’ve built a devoted fan base. They’ll return to the Music Box Supper Club for their annual holiday show.
Says Detweiler, “On our 2018 tour, we will be performing as a trio, leaning into three-part harmonies and making an intimate but hopefully holy ruckus. It won’t be all Christmas music: we’ll certainly mix in tunes from many of our records along the way. But hopefully it’s still true; that you haven’t heard anything quite like it.”
Tickets are $32 in advance, $38 at the door.
musicboxcle/over-the-rhine-dec16/
Cleveland, OH 44113