“What I learned from all of my musical adventures, and especially those in the South, playing at juke joints and meeting local and international artists carrying this music’s torch, is that nothing counts more than being yourself. If you’re original and authentic, people can feel it and respond.”

Ted Drozdowski: Flow Like a River

The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South

The visionary, award-winning film The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South will be available on streaming networks, including Amazon, and on DVD at retail on June 10. The film will be available for pre-release viewing exclusively on Night Flight Plus starting May 10, for 30 days. The crowdfunded feature film was conceived and written by award-winning journalist and musician Ted Drozdowski and stars his cosmic roots band Coyote Motel as well as the light artists in Darling Lucifer Productions and the aerialists of Suspended Gravity Circus. The director is Richie Owens, Dolly Parton’s partner in OwePar Entertainment, who is currently working on the documentary series Smoky Mountain DNA, which tells the story of the Parton family’s musical roots. The cast and crew are all independent artists from Nashville. In 10 songs and stories, The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South explores the currents of life and history along the Mississippi, the Cumberland, and the Tallahatchie rivers.

(Ted Drozdowski / Photo by Bonnie Aldcroft)

With Ted (who narrates) and Coyote Motel as guides, you’ll meet a rich cast of characters: freedom fighters, grifters, levee camp workers, immigrant coal miners, the legends of North Mississippi hill country blues, and denizens of the spirit world, as well as the landscapes surrounding these mighty waterways. Ted has been a music journalist and historian, as well as a world-touring guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, over four decades.

Interview by Michael Limnios                    Archive: Ted Drozdowski, 2018 interview 

Special Thanks: Ted Drozdowski & Pati deVries / devious planet

What moment changed your music life the most? What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your music?

There have been so many life changing moments in music for me. Hearing and seeing Johnny Cash and Ray Charles and Ike and Tina Turner on TV as a kid were big ones. Borrowing a friend’s guitar when I was a teenager and learning how to play my first chords. But the biggest was my first trip to Holly Springs, Mississippi and Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint on the outskirts of town, where Junior and R.L. Burnside were playing on a Sunday afternoon. As I listened to Junior, I had a vision, where a giant web appeared, and I realized this was a symbol of what I was experiencing—a sound that connected every sound I loved, from Cash to Sonny Sharrock to John Coltrane to Muddy Waters to the Band to Pink Floyd. It was all there. Charlie Feathers described Junior Kimbrough’s sound as “the beginning and end of all music.“ He was right! I heard my own life in the music that day, and I had to respond by rethinking my whole approach to songwriting and playing. It very literally changed my life!

What’s kept me going is that I think I'm doing something original, authentic, and artistically valid and, I'm gonna say it, even important. I am the sound and songs of Coyote Motel. This band and what it does is me. It all comes out of my heart, guts, and brain, and I’m lucky enough to have bandmates who think and feel the same way.

How did the idea of “The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South“ come about? Do you have any interesting and highlight stories about the making of?

I’ve been exploring and writing songs and stories all my life, not only as a musician but as a music journalist and a cultural historian, so this movie is the natural result of all the work I've been doing the past 35 or so years.

I knew nothing about making a movie and presenting it to the world before we made The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South, so it's been hard learning every step of the way. But I’ve always worked hard, so I guess that came naturally. Originally, I created the film as a stage play, but then realized film was a better way to take it to the world, so everyone could see it.

One of my favorite parts of making the movie was a 36-hour trip I took with the director, my dear friend Richie Owens, through North Mississippi, across the state to the Delta and Clarksdale, then across to Helena, Arkansas, and on up to Memphis, shooting B-roll footage for the spoken-word sections of the film. We shot for 27 hours of that trip, only taking a break for a few beers and a night's rest before jumping in the car at 6 a.m. the next morning with the camera and keeping the journey going. We also spent that hour at one of my favorite juke joints, the Delta Blues Alley Cafe, which sadly burned down in early April just before we were going to play there again, but at least it's in the film.

”Besides being tales in the film, these songs are stories about the cycle of life and time, about change and hope, and about the beauty and resilience of the human spirit. I do think that comes across. There is no better metaphor for life than rivers!” (Photo: Ted Drozdowski and aerialists from the film The River)

What touched you from your odyssey in the American South? What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experiences?

What I learned from all of my musical adventures, and especially those in the South, playing at juke joints and meeting local and international artists carrying this music’s torch, is that nothing counts more than being yourself. If you’re original and authentic, people can feel it and respond. I love that! I've made friends all over the world by playing music, and I love that, too.

From the musical and feeling point of view is there any difference between the old cat and great bluesmen and the young blues musicians?

Well, there is and there isn’t. It kind of varies from musician to musician. The best ones, or at least the ones I love best, respect and channel the past while leaning into the future. Just like Son House and Muddy Waters, and my friends Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside, and Jessie Mae Hemphill, did. They have an energy and purpose that can come out of their music and their bodies and strike you like lightning.

What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

First, with this movie, I want people to reflect on who they are and how the stories and songs in the film relate to all of them. Because they do. And the light artists in Darling Lucifer Productions and the aerialists in Suspended Gravity Circus play a big part in this, too. What they do allows for emotional storytelling that’s bigger than what just words and music can convey. It hits deeper. Besides being tales in the film, these songs are stories about the cycle of life and time, about change and hope, and about the beauty and resilience of the human spirit. I do think that comes across. There is no better metaphor for life than rivers!

Ted Drozdowski - Home

(Ted Drozdowski with his cosmic roots band Coyote Motel / Photo by Bonnie Aldcroft)