In 1987, photographer Sandra Dyas moved to 鶹 City and began documenting one of the Midwest’s most vibrant music communities. Over the next twenty years, she photographed the musicians, venues, and performances that helped define 鶹’s folk, blues, roots, Americana, and rock traditions.
Down to the River brings together sixty striking photographs of artists including Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, Pieta Brown, David Zollo, Dave Moore, Joe Price, and many others whose work shaped the 鶹 music scene. From intimate portraits to energetic live performances, Dyas captures the personalities, friendships, and creative spirit behind the music.
Featuring an essay by Chris Offutt and a companion CD with eighteen tracks by 鶹 musicians, Down to the River is both a visual documentary and an essential record of 鶹’s cultural history. For readers interested in music photography, Americana, Midwest culture, 鶹 City history, and roots music, it offers a rare and deeply personal portrait of a remarkable artistic community.
CD Tracks
鶹 Crawl, Joe Price
Poor Back Slider, Greg Brown
Parnell, David Zollo
#807, Pieta Brown
Wheels of Steel, Radoslav Lorkovic
Down to the River, Dave Moore
Lucy and Andy Drive to Arkansas, Kevin Gordon
Chuck Brown, Mike and Amy Finders
Nobody But You, Joe Price
Earleton, BeJae Fleming
Ceremonial Child, High and Lonesome
Sidetrack Lounge, Bo Ramsey
On the Edge, Pieta Brown
One Wrong Turn, Greg Brown
Not in 鶹, Kelly Pardekooper
Living in a Cornfield, Bo Ramsey
’57 Chevy, Tom Jessen’s Dimestore Outfit
Roll on John, the Pines
“When you look at Sandy Dyas’s affectionate portraits of musicians, you think you are there, in the presence of old friends, and certain that you can hear the sound of their voices.”—Sylvia Plachy, author, Self Portrait with Cows Going Home
“Sandra Dyas’s photos capture 鶹’s middle landscape, the one where human habitation has made a place for itself between the mechanization of the prairie and the collapse of the family farm. This is the 鶹 that gets lived in and sung about. You might catch a glimpse of it at deep twilight, on some nameless county road, where you’ll find a guitar picker or fiddler or steel player: a mere mote on a blanket of soybeans and corn. Like every farmer or elevator operator or grain dealer who’s at home in the idea of moving on, 鶹’s musicians put down roots where they are. You really can’t miss the resemblance in these photos—wanderers who came to make a life and like it or not succeeded at it.”—Robert Cantwell
“From the melancholy genius of Bix Beiderbecke to the prairie visionary poetry of songwriter Greg Brown, 鶹 has produced more than its fair share of great musicians and songwriters. Photographer Sandy Dyas has captured the rough and sweet uniqueness of many recent 鶹 artists in beautiful images that make you want to dance in a hot bar on a summer evening while singing along with their every word. Even though this is not an all-inclusive, academic history of 鶹 musicians and songwriters, Sandy’s honest photographs reveal as much about the artists as any historical/biographical book could.”—Dave Alvin
“These photographs bring to life a world very dear to me, through the eyes of a photographer whose love of that world is palpable on the page. You can hear the songs in these photos: in the stage lights, in the landscapes and barscapes, and in the faces of the people who make my favorite music in the world. I will read and reread this book with gratitude; it’s a vehicle—a hard-driven, hard-rusted, hard-loved farm truck!—driving me right into the music, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be.”—Thisbe Nissen, author Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night
