The release of the album Still the River at the Normal Theater in Normal, Illinois, marked thirty years of putting EDA’s music into the world. Built in 1937, the Normal Theater is a cozy venue still showing movies as well as hosting intimate music performances. A positive, expectant vibe was in the air as fans, friends, and family gathered for this special event.

Havana, Illinois left its mark on Edward David Anderson (EDA) and he left his mark on Havana. His new, soon-to-be-released album, Still the River, reflects this relationship built over almost three and a half years. The time includes deeply engaging with West Central Illinois and the Illinois River and his daughter, Ella as her first four birthdays were celebrated there.

Like many touring musicians, Edward David Anderson (EDA) has logged a lot of seat time in vans and RVs beginning in the mid-1990s. His band, Backyard Tire Fire, toured a bit with Gov’t Mule, Reverend Horton Heat and others, crisscrossing Canada and the United States.

Music, by its nature, is a migratory creature. It moves as it moves, often powerfully, through people and places, communities and cultures, created and carried on currents of electricity and air. Edward David Anderson is one of its modern makers, a rock and roll veteran from the cornfields of Illinois, who went into the woods of coastal Alabama and found musical serendipity, emerging with Lower Alabama: The Loxley Sessions — a timeless, unvarnished beauty of an album.