About the Album Cover

Stacy Davidson, Executive Producer:

It was difficult to choose a unifying image to tie together the different musical genres, backgrounds, and experiences of the contributors to “We Are For Egypt”. I wanted to emphasize the sense of community and regional cohesiveness that brings together people from “Little Egypt” or “Egypt, Illinois”. The title for both the project and the album initially arose from a period of intense division in Southern Illinois, the Civil War. A near-rebellion in Marion’s town square in 1861 was reported in papers across the country. A rebel faction wanted to break away from Illinois and the Union and create their own Confederate state of  “Egypt”. An account of John A. Logan’s trip to Marion to drum up support for the Union is given by his wife in her memoir Reminiscences of a Soldier’s Wife: An Autobiography, published by SIU Press. Similar to how the term “Egyptian” went from a positive to a negative one during the course of the 19th century, I intended to reclaim and reorient the phrase “We Are For Egypt” to reflect the “Egyptian” connection to the people, the land, the rivers, and the history of the region that impacted the musicians and technicians in their work on this album.

I did not want to include an overtly Egyptian cover image like a detail from the Sentinel Building in Centralia, Illinois, or an obelisk or pyramid. I met with my Producer Jenny Pape in downtown Carbondale, and, as I was leaving, I looked down and saw that the brick-lined streets included several bricks stamped “Egyptian”. There were variations in the designs, condition, and accompanying text, but here was an emblem representing this underlying “Egyptian” identity—right under my feet! The bricks were made in the early 20th century by the Murphysboro Paving Brick Company, and you can still see them lining old brick streets or being used as paving stones or decorative elements—providing a foundation, if you will, that still supports the region. After explaining this concept and what I was looking for, Jen Haselhorst and Nate Graham were able to make this vision a cover photo reality.