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Over the Rhine
2026 Christmas Tour Thoughts

One December, not long after Over the Rhine began recording and touring, we were invited to perform some seasonal songs on a public radio station in Cincinnati. It was Christmastime and apparently they thought we were up to the task. We worked up a few carols and traditional
tunes and Karin even read a poem by Thomas Hardy called, The Oxen.

It actually felt really good and conjured up an unusual mix of feelings from childhood: innocence, loss, wonder, joy, sadness. I think we were surprised.

People must have tuned into the radio broadcast, because we began receiving inquiries as to whether we had recorded any of our Christmas songs. I don’t think we had considered it at the time, but any young, struggling songwriter is open to the suggestions of the marketplace, and
people were persistent.

In December of 1996 – can it really be 30 years ago? – we recorded and released our first song cycle of some of the Christmas carols that still haunted us. We included a few original tunes and called our wintry mix The Darkest Night Of The Year. We played a special “darkest night”
release concert on winter solstice in an old 1300-seat theater in Cincinnati. Every last seat was full. Folks began snatching up copies and seemed to agree that they hadn’t heard anything quite like it.

We began playing concerts around the Midwest every December and found that the rooms were usually packed full of people who had bundled in out of the cold with prized companions. Hats and scarves abounded. If you stepped outside during intermission, you could make ghosts with your breath in the crisp night air. And it was dark – oh so dark: a time of year with its own music.

A decade later, in 2006, we released our first full collection of original Christmas/holiday songs called Snow Angels. What is it about Christmas music and the undeniable gravitational pull it exerts on some songwriters? So many Christmas songs have already been written. I think we
have always been genuinely curious about the ones that haven’t yet been written.

We continued to tour every December and these special year-winding-down concerts began to feel like an annual tradition – gatherings of extended musical family, without whom, we’d be homeless.

By the time we released our third holiday album of original songs, Blood Oranges In The Snow, in December of 2014, Karin suggested we had discovered a new genre of music: Reality Christmas.

It’s true: if you’ve buried a loved one, or lost a job, or battled a chronic illness, that stuff doesn’t go away during the holidays. It can be a complicated season for many of us.

And then there’s family.
When Karin and I make the annual holiday pilgrimage home to visit family and pull into the driveway and turn off the car, one of us inevitably looks over at the other and says, “Tie a rope around my waist, I’m goin’ in.”

In 2026, 30 years after releasing our first holiday CD, we are still at it. This year, we will be leaning into some harmonies and making an intimate but hopefully holy ruckus. It won’t be all Christmas music: we’ll certainly mix in tunes from many of our records along the way. But
hopefully it’s still true: hopefully you haven’t heard anything quite like it.

Maybe a midnight snow will fall and turn each streetlight into its own private snow globe. Maybe, regardless of whatever reality Christmas brings, we’ll hear a faint echo of a song once rumored to have been sung by angels, a song of peace on earth, goodwill toward all…

We’ve never heard anything quite like it.

We hope you’ll join us,
Linford Detweiler
With Karin close by
Nowhere Else
Clinton County, Ohio

Following critically acclaimed sell-out runs at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Adelaide Fringe, and sold-out shows in the UK and the US, The Carole King & James Taylor Story comes to a theatre near you. Taking you on an incredible journey through the careers of the six-time Grammy Award winner, twenty-time platinum hit maker Carole King, five-time Grammy Award winner, and American folk legend James Taylor, this is a show not to be missed.

Featuring passionate renditions of Fire and Rain, Sweet Baby James, I Feel the Earth Move, Natural Woman, You’ve Got a Friend, and many more, this astonishing back catalogue is realised with authenticity by Phoebe Katis and Dan Clews, both well-established artists in their own right.

“Dan Clews is too great a talent to ignore” Sir George Martin
“sent chills down my spine” ***** The Upside News
“Will leave any folk-rock fans wholly satisfied” **** BroadwayBaby
“Wow, what an experience” BBC Radio
“performance was immaculate” **** Three Weeks

The seventh album from Foy Vance, The Wake marks the completion of a decades-long journey defined by tireless soul-searching and life-altering revelation. While playing a gig on the Spanish island of Lanzarote in January 1999, the Northern Ireland-born singer/songwriter experienced a moment of unprecedented transcendence onstage, then learned the next morning that his father had suffered a fatal heart attack that very night. Overcome by grief and a galvanizing clarity, Vance immediately resolved to create seven albums informed by the loss of his father—a traveling preacher who moved their family to the American South when Vance was a baby, and set him on his life’s path by teaching him to play guitar early in his childhood. At turns devastating and ecstatic and wildly illuminating, The Wake reveals an artist highly attuned to the task of preserving the human spirit in an often-unforgiving world.

Produced by Ethan Johns (the Brit Award-winning producer known for his work with Paul McCartney, Ray LaMontagne, and more), The Wake brings Vance’s gritty vocal work to a potent convergence of folk and soul and Southern blues, instilling every moment with an unbridled vitality. In his intimate exploration of the human condition, the Scotland-based artist muses on matters both intensely personal (e.g., fatherhood, heartbreak) and wholly existential (the slippery essence of time, the looming crisis of AI’s unchecked ascent). The final volume in a run of albums that began with his 2007 debut Hope—and also includes standouts like 2016’s The Wild Swan (executive-produced by Elton John), 2019’s From Muscle Shoals and To Memphis (recorded at the historic FAME Studios and Sam Phillips Recordings Studios, respectively), and 2021’s Signs of Life (partly made at Vance’s home in the Scottish Highlands)—the result is the purest distillation yet of his truly singular artistry, imparting a defiant joy into songs of longing and loss and hard-won acceptance. 

$1 per ticket goes to HER Campaign

Jake Speed & the Freddies, Cincinnati’s long-running folk/Americana band, host a night rooted in toe-tappin’, foot-stompin’ original tunes that muse on Cincinnati’s unique past & present. Known as the Woody Guthrie of Cincinnati, Jake Speed uses a traditional folksy delivery to compose timely and timeless songs that tell great stories with a bit of a lyrical edge. This special Queen City-centric concert celebrates 25 years of music-making, storytelling, and deep ties to the region, featuring cameo appearances by Mike Oberst of The Tillers, Ed Cunningham of The Comet Bluegrass Allstars, and Chris Cusentino of The Turkeys. The concert also marks the release of the band’s sixth studio album with 12 new songs, some of which pay tribute to Cincinnati musical icons Katie Laur, The Comet Bluegrass Allstars, dancing with daffodils at Washington Park, and their roots in Ohio. More than a performance, this 25th Anniversary concert is a celebration of Cincinnati’s music, stories, and community. Proceeds benefit Cincinnati Public Radio, helping sustain the local voices and institutions that preserve the past, enrich the present, and guide the journey ahead.