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Old Man River
"Just Keeps Rollin'"
Location: Sydney
Website: http://www.oldmanrivermusic.com/
Bio: With his debut album Good Morning, Ohad Rein a.k.a. OLD MAN RIVER is proving that the global language of communication can be found in the ... (more)
roots of good music. Old Man River's blend of
sunny, spirited, and melodic songs burst forth from the seams of the album with an infectious and widespread appeal. Ohad's tales of life, love, and people are a result of his journey across the world, the people that he's met and been inspired by, and the truths he's uncovered along the way. But who exactly is OLD MAN RIVER?
"It started as a solo project," explains Ohad, "and from thereon in I had a band join me for my live performances. It's my project in terms of the music and lyrics from the album, but there's a spirit of collaboration and unity in the way the music is played live.
"As for the name OLD MAN RIVER, it indirectly came from a book called 'Siddhartha' by Hermann Hesse, and it's a book which describes the life of the Buddha, but it doesn’t say so. It's about a journey and a quest of this guy who leaves his hometown and is looking for something. He comes to a river, and standing in front of it he suddenly gets the answer he's been looking for. What he sees there is that his life, and all our lives, are just like the river - it just keeps flowing, and it keeps changing every minute, but yet it's the same river. I really took a liking to rivers symbolically as a result.
"'Old Man River' is of course also a song from the musical 'Showboat', but when I was living in New York people used it as a saying - "Old Man River just keeps rolling'. In other words, life goes on, don’t worry about it. I took a liking to that saying as well - and I loved the song. Those things came together for me when I was working on my music - it seemed like a natural fit, in terms of the way I thought about my life and what I wanted to project from my music."
Born in Sydney Australia, Ohad moved to Europe with his family at a very early age, before moving to Israel in his formative years. It was there - well before he relocated to New York, and then ultimately returned to Sydney, Australia - that his love of music began to reveal itself. "I picked up my first guitar at thirteen and I started writing songs pretty much straight away, without even knowing I was doing it – I was just playing around with melodies. To this day the process
of songwriting is still mysterious to me – I can't tell you where it's coming from. It's just like you have these sensory antennas and you tap in to something into the ether… and then all of a sudden you have a song."
Although the guitar is his main instrument, Ohad's love of music from around the world has seen him pick up a number of other instruments that have further enhanced his journey of musical discovery.
Whether it's the sitar, bass, harmonium, or piano, Ohad has challenged himself to learn more and experiment further with these instruments. And as far as style and inspiration goes, it's clear from the music featured on Good Morning that Ohad's tastes are varied, eclectic and globally-diverse. "I'm a sucker for the oldies – I can always listen toThe Beatles, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. I also like to pick up music from wherever I travel, and so I'm really into Indian music from when I was there, and I got in country music and
Americana when I was in America, and then in the Middle East I listened to a lot of Arabic music."
If there's one thing that bonds OLD MAN RIVER's music together, it's surely the sun-kissed and positive vibes that emerge from the musical offerings on his album. "In making Good Morning, it was a very conscious intention to bring forth a positivity in the music. Being an artist, it's really easy to come up with a sad song or to come up with a sad art piece – melancholy comes easy to us. You can wake up in
the morning and say that everything is shit, or you can look for something positive. It means digging a bit harder. It's the same thing with music; it's more challenging to write an up-
lifting song which is not cheesy, than to just write a sad song about how bad everything is.
"From my personal journey I realized that I wanted to create positive messages and songs. It doesn't always work out that way, but I might as well aim to come from that place. If it does work it's an amazing feeling – you
don't only elevate your spirit, but you elevate the spirit of people around you."
In terms of elevating the spirit, that's exactly what OLD MAN RIVER has done with the first single from the album – La. It's
an irresistible, uplifting, feel-good song which is guaranteed to have you smiling and singing along after just one listen. Originally composed in Sydney, when Ohad was working
at a music therapy workshop for disadvantaged children, La boasts a simple chorus hook that defies the boundaries of demographic dissection – this is music for people all over the world, whoever they are, and wherever they are from.
As Ohad says, "Music is amazing as a communication tool – it crosses over to everyone, despite any other limitations of language or intellect. Music makes you feel happy, feel good, makes you feel joy."
The proof of OLD MAN RIVER's appeal can be found in the fact La was a MASSIVE hit in Italy over the 2007 European summer. In fact the single was indeed the soundtrack for the
Italian summer, reaching #2 on the radio airplay chart, #11 on the download chart, and #18 on the singles chart. "The whole country just seemed to click with it, and it became
a summer anthem over there," he says, with genuine awe and affection. "It's incredible… from writing that song in workshop in Sydney with a few disabled clients, to becoming the sound of Summer for Italian families – that just blows me away! I'm stoked about what's happening in Italy because it was so unexpected. Once the music is completed and released you never know where it's going to end up. La was like a seed floating in the wind that just happened to land in Italy, and now there’s a big tree there!
"The first time I faced it was a bit of a shock really because I had never had a reception like that. The first day we got to Italy we played a festival called Festival bar in Verona which was in front of 20,000 people in this Roman arena, and which was broadcast around the country to 10 million Italians. We did La and everybody in the stadium was singing along, and it was just… incredible. It was really, really overwhelming."
The organic and incredible success of La has ensured that OLD MAN RIVER and the Good Morning album are firmly in demand around the globe. With international release plans that include priority releases for OLD MAN RIVER in the UK,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, France, Japan and Canada, and with a second single Sunshine (complete with a beautiful music video shot along the revered Ganges River in Varanasi, India) already stirring further interest, it seems that OLD MAN RIVER has found a way to unite music-lovers around the world. "The main insight you get as a traveler is
that people are essentially the same wherever you go," says Ohad. "The more you see of the world, the more you realize the similarities we have amongst each other, as opposed to the differences. Music has a way of helping to connect people, despite whatever else is going on. For my part, to be able to put a smile on people's faces with my music is the reward that means most to me."
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