Tucker Eskew wrote:
> But I'm struck by the whole concept...the River. Is it relevant or
> coincidental? >>At first I wasn't sure if it was actually the Bottle
> Rockets. ...Brian Henneman talked about the importance of the river on
> their lives and their music. <<
>
> Well Henneman is a musician of uncommon historical sensibility and
> sense of place. Living in the area, the River is a large part of ones
> sense of where you are. And kids do go down to the river to drink
> beer or whatever. It's kind of like the opening scene of Moby Dick
> where Ishmael notes everybody on the walk overlooking the sea, and
> wondering what it is about the water that draws them.
> Water-watchers. And Rivers are deeply implanted in our culture as
> sources of life.
>
> I give the show's writers and producers credit for not overplaying
> the whole River thing. Until Henneman's comments, I'd come to the
> conclusion that the River is not especially inspirational or even
> necessary to the creation or the location of the music featured thus
> far in this series, St. Louis riverboat ride notwithstanding. It
> occurred to me that the Minneapolis rock and Indian music and the
> polka and the Swedish folk music of episode one could all have been
> found, in better and worse incarnations, elsewhere in the heartland,
> hundreds of miles from the Mississippi. Same could be said for the St.
> Louis gospel and R&B.
>
> Well not really. Minneapolis rock would not exist if not for the
> falls of St. Anthony, where the river became unavigable and where
> power for flour milling existed. Likewise, St. Paul sits on the only
> place in the region where the grade up from the River is gradual
> enough that a road reacing to the Red River and through the rich
> plains could be made for ox-drawn wagons. And these geologic factors
> set the conditions for drawing the people into the place where
> innovation generally takes place, at least before the radio, the
> metropolis. And the river is the reason for the main metropolises
> (metropoli?) and their hinterlands of this series that focus the
> music. St. Paul/Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. (Can
> someone say Jay Farrar? <g>--UT content!)
>
> Come to think of it, even *after* Henneman's comments, I'm not sure
> the Mississippi is all that central (figuratively, not literally) to
> the music featured. *Not that there's anything wrong with that.* Sure,
> the Mississippi River (and most especially its Delta) richly imbues
> the lives and culture that rise up around it. But if, as it seems to
> me, it happens to be a convenient framework for highlighting some
> great roots music, then fine. If you think there's more to it than
> that, enlighten me.
>
>
> Well its the drain of the whole contintent between the Rockies and the
> Alleghenies, and it served as the source of commerce and settlement
> for so long it developed these related but distinch creole cultures up
> and down its banks, and that's the source of this music.
>
>
>
>
