Mississippi River Suite, Part V (video)

“And we’re standing right here,with our sons and our daughters, ‘cause this is our water, this is our river…” This is the end of the Mississippi River Suite where it all comes home. As the late Lee Sandlin wrote in his book Wicked River, “as far as the eye can see, the river was the only road.” And there is only one river that runs the north to south boundaries of our United States and although it twists and turns like wildfire wind, it flows south and downhill like a red-blooded vein on a mission never to be stopped. And it never has been.

As Mark Twain said, “One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver that ten thousand river commissions cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, ‘Go here’ or ‘Go there’ and make it obey.” And the only hope that survives and serves the well being of the river, the fish inside, and the people standing to the east and west of it is one of cooperation. Pollution, poured in the with the notion that it flows away, poisons the ground on which we stand (one nation?) and the water we dare not drink.

“As far as they eye can see, the river is the only road.” And it’s our road and our river and our hopes and dreams all wrapped in this magnificent Mississippi that feeds us and nourishes us and brings us from here to there and home again.

This work is product of collaboration. Collaborators know the truth that when you assemble the right people in the right room, the possibilities explode. So picture this for a moment—we’re at John Abbey’s studio in Chicago called “Kingsize” because the main room is massive—like the size of a gymnasium but filled with museum-like artifacts including old guitars, amps, drum sets, keyboards, a Hammond B3—along with state of the art and vintage equipment with head-shop posters on a few of the walls and drawings from John’s kids when they were younger. And here we assemble—Zahra Baker is off to one side but everybody has to see everybody. I’m closest to her with my banjo and Lloyd Brodnax King on flute next to me. Across from us is Chris Clemente on bass and Brent Roman surrounded by his swirl of percussion instruments. We recorded this thing live—separated by little half walls to buffer the room sound but allow for eye contact as made our way down the river. The walls of this room have witnessed many such moments.

One last and powerful ingredient was to hand this track, Part V, to Sue Demel and Deborah Lader and ask them to sing along. With unbridled imaginations and unlimited skillsets, their vocal addition took this track to a point of completion that I could never have dreamed of. My name sits at the top as the one who is the writer/composer—but the backstory is much more about an idea that I handed first to Zahra and then one by one to everyone else involved to Lloyd, to Chris, to Brent, and to Sue and Deborah. And it was John Abbey who understood it all and created the sound that we hand to you.