Duo takes on joys and sorrows that occur during the holidays
Christmastime isn’t all sugar and spice. For some, the holiday is a few more threads plucked out of already threadbare finances. For others, the loss of a loved one dulls the joy of the season.
Linford Detweiler knows the feeling.
“I think people can get a little burned out on some of the jingly tunes we hear on the radio all the time, even though they are quite wonderful,” he said. “Some of them feel a little tired at this point.”
Detweiler, one-half of the Cincinnati-based acoustic duo Over the Rhine along with Karin Bergquist, addresses holiday melancholy on the group’s third Christmas album, “Blood Oranges in the Snow.”
Calling it “reality” Christmas music, the married couple addresses the death of Detweiler’s father on the bittersweet duet “My Father’s Body,” winter cold on “If We Make it Through December” and life’s anxieties on “Let It Fall.”
“While it is a happy time of year, it’s also a time of year where a lot of people experience conflicted emotions,” Detweiler, 53, said.
But don’t think that Over the Rhine finds Christmas a downer.
“Blood Oranges” comes on the heels of two Christmas albums dedicated to classic carols and cheery originals, meaning that the duo will have more than 30 songs to pull from during its acoustic Christmas show on Thursday at the Lincoln Theatre.
Bergquist slings a guitar over her shoulder, while Detweiler most often sits at the keyboard.
No surprise, then, that the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” ranks as his favorite yuletide album.
Listen closely to the instrumental Over the Rhine track “Snow Angels,” and the trio’s influence peeps through.
“I think everything I know about playing jazz piano I learned listening to that record,” Detweiler said.
Even his favorite Christmas music leans toward the melancholy, but Detweiler never allows sadness to bog the band down for long.
Detweiler credits the art of creating songs for pulling him out of many funks.
First, the 2005 album “Drunkard’s Prayer” was written after the couple canceled a tour to revive their drooping marriage.
Then, in 2010, their first crowd-funded record, “The Long Surrender,” told stories of one broken person after another.
Detweiler and Bergquist are wrapping up writing their next album with plans for a release in early 2018. Songs spun out of their writing sessions have focused on the ways in which music aids the healing process.
“It’s surprising to me, but I feel like I need songs now more than ever,” Detweiler said. “It’s been a stressful year for a lot of people, and a lot of folks are unsure about the direction of our country. People are feeling a little bit at sea, I think. When the music starts, I feel myself begin to breathe. I feel like I’m standing on the ground again, and I start to get this deep conviction that we’re going to be all right.”
The couple pens two-thirds of their music separately and reunites for the remaining few songs.
She holes up in her writing room; he’s still searching for a nook in which to place a writing desk.
“You have to be able to enjoy your own company,” he said of solitary creativity. “It requires sitting alone with the dilemma of the blank page.”
Several years ago, they moved from the once- gritty, now transforming Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to a rambling farm