About Coyote Motel’s The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South film and soundtrack album:

“A dream journey that teases out why and how music means so much to so many of us.”—Anthony DeCurtis, author of Lou Reed: A Life

 “Coyote Motel’s new film The River is not only a watery flow but also an idea and a metaphor. It is a catalyst, a source of poetry, light and music.”
—Anne McCue, Rhythms Magazine

“Guitarist, bandleader and journalist Ted Drozdowski has spent more than three decades performing, celebrating, and commemorating the South’s greatest music. The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South is a song cycle about a history that continues to unfold. The film adeptly blends music and a wealth of other modes of expression into a visually stunning presentation. There are performance sequences that include the band, aerial dancers and light-show artists working together in a kind of psychedelic ballet.”—Ron Wynn, Nashville Scene  

 “Outside-the-box is the comfort zone for Nashville-based cosmic roots music trailblazers Coyote Motel. They’ve earned a reputation for fearless live performances and a highly original sound, even as they embrace the deep traditions of American music. Now, the five-piece have made their debut, feature-length film, The River: A Songwriter’s Stories of the South.”—American Blues Scene  

“These songs and the narratives connecting them are a journey along these beautiful rivers, and the river of life, with the music, visuals, and aerial dance adding a kaleidoscopic palette that broadens the film’s emotional landscape to something beyond what words and music alone can convey.”
—The Nashvillian Magazine  

“I was totally mesmerized! The narrative was perfect—it set the mood and was super informative. The visuals are a delightful spectacle. The songs and arrangements are all great, catchy, and compelling. It’s like David Lynch filmed a documentary with a psychdelic Delta blues band.” — Jim DeCola, research and development manager and master luthier, Gibson Guitars

About Coyote Motel’s live Still Among the Living album:

• Ted Drozdowski leads Coyote Motel through songs from their self-titled 2019 debut, offering a unique hybrid of blues, rock, and roots music. The guitarist imbues opener “Still Among the Living” with otherworldly fretwork and haunting vocals while Luella Melissa Mathes’ ethereal vocals offer a nice counterpoint to Drozdowski’s wiry vox, taking a song like the devastating “The River” into a higher dimension. An appearance by jazz legend Stan Lassiter on the classic “Tin Pan Alley” compliments Drozdowski’s scorched-earth approach to the song. Overall, Still Among the Living captures a truly electrifying performance by a talented band as scary as the wrong end of a .44 revolver. Grade: A BUY! — Rev. Keith A. Gordon, That Devil Music

• Blues is a major component of jazz, and one of the most interesting blues records of the year nods to jazz fusion, even as it incorporates elements of Mississippi juke-joint music. Guitarist, singer and bandleader Ted Drozdowski assembled a diverse cast of players on his band Coyote Motel’s Still Among the Living, which features turns from post-blues singer Luella and veteran Nashville jazz-rock guitarist Stan Lassiter. Luella sings like a disciple of Mississippi-born blues legend Jessie Mae Hemphill, while Lassiter shreds like jazz fusion never went away. There’s nothing particularly avant-garde about Still Among the Living, but it’s a raucous album that should satisfy both bluesniks and fans of fretboard audacity. As often happens in Nashville, conservatism tangles with the progressive impulse on the record, recorded live at The 5 Spot. For all that, it’s an often-surprising effort. If jazz is the sound of surprise, Drozdowski & Co. are doing their best to remain true to the music’s spirit. – Edd Hurt, Nashville Scene

• Multitalented instrumentalist and journalist Ted Drozdowski’s Coyote Motel ensemble blends and mashes up idiomatic references and elements in dazzling, freewheeling fashion. Their latest release Still Among the Living offers eight sizzling selections that run the gamut from autobiographical reflection to fiery social protest, insightful probing and energetic declarations. Drozdowski is the central driving force with his exuberant vocals, jovial personality and sonically flamboyant guitar solos, which merge avant-garde jazz’s experimental edge with heavy metal’s equally unpredictable fireworks. Still, everything’s fortified by a lyrical foundation steeped in the blues sensibility of irony, resilience and response. — Ron Wynn, Nashville Scene

About Coyote Motel’s debut album, Coyote Motel:

• “Altogether, Coyote Motel is a hell of a lot of fun, a near-perfect fusion of blues, country, rock, and folkish elements that shouldn’t work but instead sounds like Drozdowski invented the entire Americana genre. Grade: A   BUY!” — Rev. Keith A. Gordon, That Devil Music

• “Ted Drozdowski is one of the most imaginative guitarists currently exploring the outer reaches of cosmic roots music. [He has] inventive guitar chops, his deep respect for the blues and an off-kilter artistic vision that’s delightfully mad, but also completely organic. ”— Peter Lindlbad, Elmore Magazine

• “Drozdowski conjures up his own mesmerizing hoodoo on Coyote Motel, which is also the name of his new combo. The guitarist ranges here from the moody atmospherics of “Still Among the Living” to the dirty rocking of “Down in Chulahoma” and the punkish intensity of “Jimmy Brown.” What most of the album’s tracks have in common is the way Drozdowski’s six-string excursions venture far out – sometimes into the realm of the psychedelic – while they and the music manage to remain grounded in the elemental immediacy of the blues.” — Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer (syndicated review column)

• “Their masterful new self-titled LP. Coyote Motel, is something of a lucid dream woven from cosmic threads of blues and other roots musics, as Drozdowski navigates some challenging emotional territory in his lyrics, from the intimately personal to musings on society as a whole. The music is plenty to take you somewhere else.” — Steve Trageser, Nashville Scene

• “The band’s new record has three things current blues records often lack: great songs, a sense of mystery, and the concept of a record as a work of art in and of itself, and not just as a recorded bar performance.” – Michael Ross, Guitar Player

• “Drozdowski and his Scissormen are adept in walking the line between purism and innovation. The band brings a reckless raw energy that drips with honeysuckle wine and the stifling yet comfortable humidity of the Deep South.  There is mysticism and mystery in the music.” — Joe Wolfe-Mazeres, No Depression

• “Ted Drozdowski is a trippy guitar player.” — Otis Taylor, Blues Music Award-winning guitarist/songwriter