Waterdeep
Kansas City, Missouri9 reviews across 4 releases
Waterdeep is a Kansas City, Missouri, band formed in 1995 around the husband-and-wife songwriting of Don and Lori Chaffer. Its early identity was a Midwestern jam band, but the music was never confined to extended improvisation: Sink or Swim, the 1997 independent release, paired emotive shared vocals with acoustic guitar, piano or organ, and occasional distortion. By Everyone's Beautiful in 1999, the sound had widened into loose electric rock, folk-rock, and worship writing, with story songs about a man facing a brain tumor and a woman abandoned by her husband alongside loud guitar passages. The unusual combination was its plainspoken vulnerability and refusal of a single format. Enter the Worship Circle, recorded live with 100 Portraits, reduced the arrangement to acoustic guitars and hand percussion, while You Are So Good to Me brought worship songs into tighter settings without removing the band's off-kilter grooves.
In 2000, financial difficulties stripped Waterdeep down to Don and Lori Chaffer, ending the larger touring lineup that had included Brandon and Christena Graves and Kenny Carter. The Chaffers continued as an acoustic duo, although touring became less frequent after both couples had children. Don released solo records in 2002, and Lori followed with 1Beginning in 2003, while the pair also kept recording as Waterdeep. By the end of the 2000s, they had relocated from Kansas City to Nashville, where their work extended into production, songwriting, teaching, and musical theater. Waterdeep returned to more regular recording in 2007, moving through stripped-down folk and experimental material before releasing Tandem in 2020. The band remains the Chaffers' project.
4 releases reviewed
Sink or Swim
Enter the Worship Circle
Everyone's Beautiful
You Are So Good to Me