NORTH SMITHFIELD – North Smithfield singer-songwriter Stefan Couture has teamed up with filmmaker Christian de Rezendes, also of North Smithfield, to create an original song to be used in de Rezendes’ Emmy award winning documentary “Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village.”
de Rezendes also directed a music video for the song, “Follow the River,” which was released today, on Friday, Feb. 20.
“I reached out to Stefan because he’s a very well-known musician who also happens to live on my street. Our grandfathers worked together going back to the 1930s,” de Rezendes said. “I was hoping for a chance for us to work together on something for the series. I’m very happy with the work he did.”
de Rezendes is the creator of the 11-part historical documentary about Slatersville, a village of North Smithfield, which played a major part in the birth of the Industrial Revolution.
Couture, a modern folk singer with a soulful style, said he was “honored” to be asked to write a song for the series, but he was initially overwhelmed by the project.
“I was like ‘I’m not really sure how to do this,'” he said. “It was an interesting challenge. I started watching episodes and I was moved heavily. But then I pretty much went with the simplest approach.”
He said he finally decided to tell the story of his own ancestors, which he said is also the story of many people in the community.
“I thought, ‘why don’t I tell the simple story of my ancestors who followed the river from Quebec to the [Slatersville] Mill.’ The river provided, and the people followed it for work, to build a better life. That’s the meat and potatoes of it,” Couture said.
de Rezendes shot a music video in November of 2024 for the song, which features Couture and his childhood friend and sometime music partner, Matt Nolan, performing by the Branch River, which once powered the Slatersville Mill, and inside the 1921 Memorial Town Building while it was being restored as an event and performance space.
“We shot it there because I wanted to give the positive impression of preservation actively happening while giving the visual sense that all of this is always a work in progress,” de Rezendes said.
The song will be used in the documentary, de Rezendes said.
“We have a few more episodes before we are done,” he said. “I’m happy to bring awareness of the film with this video. I do want to do this with other local musicians too. That would be awesome.”
Couture said he is hoping the song and video will resonate with people.
“I hope it makes people feel things. People are so disconnected and cut off these days. If you can make somebody feel something, that’s huge,” he said.
The video became available for streaming on Friday, Couture’s 49th birthday, and the song will be available on all streaming platforms on March 20, “the first day of spring,” Couture said.
Episodes 1-8 of “Slatersville: America’s First Mill Village” can be viewed on Tubi, PBS Documentaries, Prime Video and YouTube Movies. More information about the documentary and about how to donate to help complete the series can be found at www.firstmillvillage.com
