Award-Winning Cosmic Blues Film by Coyote Motel Now On Google Play

by Glenn Sargeant | Sep 25, 2025

After award-winning screenings at international film festivals and a soundtrack on the Americana Radio chart, The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South arrives on Google Play and other streaming services, and on DVD.

The crowdfunded full-length concert film was conceived and written by Ted Drozdowski, the bandleader of Coyote Motel and an award-winning journalist and musician, as well as the former editorial director of Premier Guitar, America’s largest guitar magazine. The film stars Coyote Motel as well as the light artists in Darling Lucifer Productions and the aerialists of Suspended Gravity Circus. The director is Richie Owens, Dolly Parton’s partner in OwePar Entertainment and producer.

Through their unique sonic approach, which includes Theremin, Coyote Motel pushes the envelope of great American roots music in new and exciting ways. The songs in this stunning musical presentation explore the currents of life and history along the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tallahatchie rivers. With Ted (who narrates) and Coyote Motel as guides, viewers are introduced to a diverse cast of characters: freedom fighters, grifters, levee camp workers, immigrant coal miners, the legends of North Mississippi’s hill country blues, and denizens of the spirit world.

“This film is a unique experience,” says Drozdowski. “It’s also the culmination of my lifetime of making music and exploring the dusty crossroads where great American roots music and culture still live.”

Anthony DeCurtis, the Grammy-winning author of Lou Reed: A Life and the former VH-1 news director and Rolling Stone editor, calls The River “a dream journey that teases out why and how much music means so much to so many of us.” Ron Wynn, in The Nashville Scene, called the film “a song cycle about a history that continues to unfold—visually stunning.” And in Australia’s Rhythms Magazine, Anne McCue offers this: “A catalyst, a source of poetry, light, and music.”