| Over the Rhine | Everybody Has A Story... | Press Archive index
. . . Books and Culture by John Wilson Two times earlier this year -- first at Calvin College's Festival of Faith & Writing, and then more recently at Wheaton College -- I have heard a band called Over the Rhine in concert. The prime movers of Over the Rhine are Karin Bergquist, who does most of the singing and plays guitar, and her husband, Linford Detweiler, master of keyboards. Many of their songs have a passionate intimacy, an explosive mix of sex and love and longing, wit and lyrical abandon (you can hear this, for example, in "Faithfully Dangerous" on the recent CD, Good Dog Bad Dog). When they perform, they are taking the private and making it public in the space created by art. Risks are entailed in such a performance -- perhaps most of all by the performers themselves. But we need more such risk-takers and more gatekeepers willing to give them the stage. |