Talking with Over the Rhine

Husband-and-wife duo Over the Rhine has had a decades-long career, and last month they pressed a vinyl reissue of their 2003 double album, Ohio, to rave reviews.

It all began in the late 1980s when they moved to the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. In the time since, that neighborhood for which they named their band has gone from the most dangerous in the country to a more gentrified area frequented by tourists. And though it’s changed, multiple local organizations — including a program run by the band — are working to preserve its historical architecture and diverse culture.

For the spring edition of No Depression, I dug deep into the relationship between roots music and urban development in this tiny corner of Cincinnati. Among other things, Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine (the band) gave me a peek into what life was like in Over-the-Rhine (the neighborhood) in the late-1980s and early-‘90s, as well as what he and bandmate/wife Karin Bergquist do now to stay involved with the place that meant so much to them.

Following are excerpts from that interview.

Hilary Saunders: Why did you decide to move to Over-the-Rhine in the first place?

Linford Detweiler: Karin and I met as students at a little liberal arts Quaker college in Northeast Ohio, and after we graduated, we were both adrift in various chapters of uncertainty. One thing we both kept coming back to was songwriting. … We loved songwriting, we loved music, we loved recordings, we loved performing, we loved writing and reading and conversations and ideas. We both had grown up in pretty small towns and we loved the idea that maybe we would get to see the world if we hung our hats firmly on the songwriting peg.

Somehow we ended up migrating down to Cincinnati, and we had heard about this neighborhood Over-the-Rhine. We were really taken with that name. It just sounded so weird and magical — sort of “Over the Rainbow” meets some unknown prince across the sea!

What was the neighborhood like when you moved there?

When I first moved down there, it was mostly a black neighborhood. Quite a few of the buildings were in some form of having been abandoned at some point. There were significant stretches of the neighborhood that were just sitting empty. But I loved the neighborhood in terms of the culture of the people who were living there and just how everything was sort of abuzz in the summertime. People brought their chairs down the sidewalks and sat on the streets and hung out.

How did Over-the-Rhine change in the time that you lived there? How has it changed since you two left?

My goodness, Vine Street now! … That used to be just the ground zero of the bad part of town. Walk up and down Vine [now, and] there are amazing restaurants and shops and it’s just a thriving street!

[The change in the neighborhood] can be a little bit complicated. People do get displaced. Property values start going up; rents start going up. I thought the city did a pretty remarkable job about trying to retain low-income housing options in the neighborhood.

Personally, I was incredibly happy to see this neighborhood saved and these buildings saved and restored. There’s huge parts of Nashville and so many other cities that they just tore down, [that are] gone forever. I know it’s complicated, but ultimately I think it’s a treasure that the neighborhood was preserved.

What was the music scene in Cincinnati like?

The thing about Cincinnati was that, musically, it was really diverse. There was a lot happening. There were thee bands that got signed to major labels pretty quickly in the same couple of years — the Afghan Whigs, the Ass Ponies, and Over the Rhine. Those three bands, we could not have been more different! It wasn’t really a scene like Athens, Georgia, or Seattle. There was a scene, it was just super diverse.

Why is it important for you to stay connected to Over-the-Rhine? How do you do so?

As you know, we eventually made our way to the rolling fields of rural Ohio, but we have tried to find ways to stay connected to the neighborhood.  We have formed a non-profit called The Over the Rhine Music, Art and Earth Foundation. Part of the vision is to bring groups of students from the neighborhood to our farm for various creative collaborations in an expansive green space. We have several organizations ready to make this happen once we finish our barn/performing arts center renovation. 

Hilary Saunders’ deep-digging story about the band and neighborhood of the same name appears in the Spring 2017/Heartland issue of No Depression’s quarterly print journal. The outtakes in this interview only hint at part of the story. To read the full story, purchase a copy of Heartland or subscribe today for a full year of ND in print.