Hey Guys,

I'm a newb in The Orchard but can't say that I am as far as OtR goes. I've been a passionate fan for countless years. Anyways, I help run a new music website dedicated to music called TheMilkCarton.com. Recently we had the pleasure of reviewing and interviewing Linford, as our part of the promotional campaign for The Trumpet Child. We'd love if you'd run over, check it out, and let us know what you think.

Through this whole process, we made OtR our first Artist Page, which you can find here: www.themilkcarton.com/overtherhine. From there you can find the links to the Review and interview. I hope ya'll enjoy it, and I know I'm looking forward to start actively participating in discussion here. (and if you like TMC enough, please join in over there as well!)

Hi Charlie,
Thanks for the link. That was a great interview and I enjoyed it a lot. The Milk Carton sounds like a great way to expose in depth artists to people who may never have heard them.
I for one LOVE to learn about new artists. There are so many wonderful composers and songwriters out there that would go unheard because they lack exposure.
I just love it when I discover music that hits that sweetspot. Just about all the time for me it's someone that is off that beaten path.
Keep up the good work.
I'd love to see an interview with Kim Taylor, too.
And welcome to the Orchard.

yeah, this was forwarded to me by someone yesterday and i thought it was great work also, nicely done and a great idea.

welcome to the orchard charlie, hope to see you around quite a bit.

Nice job Charlie. Looks like a great music resource.

Thanks, everyone. I love discovering new music as well. Through working on this project for Over the Rhine, I've made some great friends at Music Allies -- the promoters of The Trumpet Child. We have a lot of other things we're excited to work on them with, including some very undiscovered artists that are absolutely phenomenal!

An interview with Kim Taylor? Hmm.... *strokes goatee*

I just saw this article from a week ago. This seems the best place to share it.

Over the Rhine: Songs Shaped by Memory

By Chris Nixon - The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 20, 2007

A conversation with Linford Detweiler feels like story time with a reclusive artsy uncle: filled with equal helpings of childlike wonder and hard-earned wisdom.

And the musician's stories lately revolve around his childhood. Specifically, he's been contemplating how our earliest memories can influence the work we chose to do.

“A couple of my friends who are also artists and I have talked about how our earliest memories have foreshadowed what we ended up doing with our lives,” Linford said in an interview from his home outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, an old farmhouse on a sprawling plot of land called Nowhere Farm.

“My friend, Michael Wilson, who is a black-and-white photographer and photographs a lot of musicians, his earliest memory is lying in his bedroom as a boy. When the headlights would go past his bedroom window, these black-and-white shadows would go around the top of his room. He would watch those black-and-white shadows and imagine a circus train going by. He ended up making black-and-white photographs for a living.

“My earliest memory that I can really put my finger on is the sound of a trumpet. So, my earliest memory ended up being reflected in the title of this project.”

Detweiler is telling the story behind the 2007 album “The Trumpet Child,” his 11th studio work in collaboration with his wife, vocalist Karin Berquist. Together, they form Over the Rhine, named for a formerly tough neighborhood (now gentrified) in Cincinnati where the duo lived during the late-1980s: “It was considered a bad part of town and there were a lot of empty buildings. I was really drawn to it because there was a scary beauty down there.”

Since the early beginnings in the 'hood bearing its name, Over the Rhine's career has flown just below the radar of popular consciousness. Despite 18 years and 23 albums (including live recordings, compilations and Detweiler's three solo discs), the couple's brand of quiet coffeehouse country and dark Southern Gothic acoustic balladry never found a foothold on radio stations. Much like the Cowboy Junkies (with whom Detweiler and Berquist have toured), there isn't a radio format suited for well-crafted acoustic music.

But good music usually finds a home. In Over the Rhine's case, home comes in the form of a devout fan base and critical acclaim.

On “The Trumpet Child” – the latest OTR album to garner good reviews – Detweiler and Berquist choose lush horn parts along with bittersweet string arrangements to bring a classic, timeless feel to the entire album.

“We wanted to gather really interesting musicians in a room and really invite people to something that felt like an evening of music unfolding,” said the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Detweiler. “We wanted to open the American songbook a little wider in terms of our influences on this record and reference a pre-rock 'n' roll era in the music: Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart, where the language was kind of playful and interesting melodies with horns and strings.”

No matter if hit singles come or not, Detweiler and Berquist will continue writing and singing songs. Not because they need the trappings of pop stars, but because it makes them better people.

“Writing is something that if I stay engaged in, I live my life with my eyes more fully open,” said Detweiler, who performs two shows at the new jazz dinner club Anthology on India Street Saturday. “I think that's what we all battle, this sense of going through life half awake. So, songwriting is something that we've built into our lives that we hope enriches us and helps us to live more soulfully. It helps us to live more intentionally and just to be aware of the stories that we're writing with our lives.”