BIO

Daniel Cryer (Dan Haseltine)—vocals, keys

Ronald Cryer (Ron Hemby)—vocals, guitar, bass

William Lee Cryer (Billy Smiley)—vocals, guitar, keys

Steven Cryer (Steve Hindalong)—vocals, drums, harmonica

Matthew Cryer (Matt Nelson)—vocals, guitar, bass

The River Cryers know you didn’t ask for this. There is no reason to consider it an obvious or even worthwhile collaboration. “No one is asking for this.” That phrase echoed off the guitars lining the walls of Nashville’s Sound Kitchen every time the River Cryers convened. Whether it’s something or nothing, the Cryers carried on writing their real and imagined stories. If it’s true that nothing sounds quite as authentic as a song born out of the pure fun and camaraderie of making music, then the River Cryers are as earnest as a band can be.

They eschew the trope of a super group. In fact, they are much more comfortable comparing the band’s formation to the urban theory that a troop of monkeys with typewriters would produce a John Grisham novel if kept in captivity long enough. Still, each band member’s list of musical accomplishments is littered with GRAMMY awards, songwriting awards, hit singles, multi-platinum records, successful tours, and A-list collaborations spanning decades. This unlikely harmony of seasoned, traveled, backslidden, sobered, lost, and possibly found artists might just be the thing our ears need to hear.

Aside from real life creative histories, there is another, possibly truer, backstory.

According to the lore, the five Cryers - Daniel, Ronald, Steven, William Lee, and young Matthew—reunited when they discovered they shared a biological father, John Cryer, whose gallivanting life flowed out of a narrow escape from the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It was the flood of ‘27 that swallowed up John’s father, Robert “River” Cryer, whose heroic and untimely death is documented in the song “Grave Misfortune (the Legend of Robert Cryer)”: “Consider the grave misfortune, consider the tragedy / When the river rose up, River went down in the raging Mississippi.”

The music of The River Cryers takes its cues from a long liturgy of jangly guitar-based rock n roll, folk and Americana infusing the musical meat and potatoes that kept them fed for a long time. It’s a little bit of CSN (and sometimes Y), Petty, Henley, Eagles, and a bit of Walsh & Buckingham. The inaugural song collection takes on themes of loss, heartache, futility, mystery and romance, all in a deeply confessional tone. One gets the sense that the songs have been lived in. They have taken seriously the discipline of writing what they know, and it textures the music with a credible grit even as the band’s loyalty to pop music satisfies our enjoyment of a good musical hook, a vivid lyric, and a catchy melody.