by Jane Roser
Photos by Dan Winters
“The Rooster’s Wife” is a heartbreaking Civil War themed song about a slave speaking to his mistress which Rhiannon Giddens delivers with such beautiful honesty and emotion it’s hard to believe that she didn’t start playing the banjo or violin until she graduated from college. It’s also hard to believe that she is still getting her feet wet writing songs, but this is an artist who is capable of just about anything and audiences hang onto every note, spellbound lest they miss a moment of it.
Growing up in Greensboro, North Carolina, Giddens was always around music, but she didn’t start becoming enraptured with roots music until graduating from Oberlin College, joining the Carolina Chocolate Drops following the first Black Banjo Gathering in Boone during the spring of 2005. Following the group’s immense success, Giddens performed at the 2013 Inside Llewyn Davis inspired concert “Another Day, Another Time”. Helmed by T-Bone Burnett, the show was a celebration of the early 60s folk revival which inspired the Coen brothers film. Giddens wowed the audience with her cover of Odetta’s “Waterboy”, then the following year, Giddens contributed to Burnett’s album Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, a compilation of songs written by Bob Dylan that were never released.
Giddens’ solo debut album Tomorrow Is My Turn was released this past winter on Nonesuch Records to fabulous reviews and now Giddens is quickly selling out shows on her current US tour (she heads to Europe this summer). Helmed again by Burnett, the album was recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville and features fiddler Gabe Witcher and bassist Paul Kowert, (both of the Punch Brothers), bassist Dennis Crouch, percussionist Jack Ashford (of the Funk Brothers), drummer Jay Bellerose, guitarist Colin Linden, and legendary backup singer Tata Vega. Gidden’s bandmates from the Carolina Chocolate Drops-Hubby Jenkins, Malcolm Parson and Rowan Corbett-are currently part of her touring band. Corbett was a regular feature in the DC area when he worked for my good friend David Eisner at his Takoma Park music store The House of Musical Traditions. In their early years touring, Eisner booked the Drops to play his IMT concert series and Corbett would sometimes sit in on a few songs playing the bones, eventually becoming a full-fledged band member.
With the exception of “Angel City”, which was written by Giddens, all of the songs on this record are covers of artists who inspired her from genres as diverse as jazz, blues, gospel and country. “I was solely responsible for choosing the material,” explains Giddens, “I brought in a long list and we recorded maybe 17 or 18 songs, I think there were five songs that didn’t make it and that was painful, but it was the right thing to do. We wanted to make sure we had an album with a narrative and a shape to it, that’s kind of a dying art. I think it’s really important to keep adding to the canon of records that [tell a story and are fluid] from beginning to end. There’s an intended order and an intended statement being made, so there’s a lot of narrowing down and in the end, it just became what seemed right artistically.”
The tracks on Tomorrow Is My Turn include such gems as Dolly Parton’s “Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind” (which was switched out from Giddens’ original choice “Gypsy Joe and Me”) and Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You” to more obscure standards such as Elizabeth Cotten’s “Shake Sugaree”.
“I love Elizabeth Cotten and of course her song “Freight Train”, but that’s been covered to death,” says Giddens, “I’d never heard a cover of “Shake Sugaree” and there’s just something about it; it’s very much in the realm of the type of songs I sing, so it felt right to do. I’m really happy that people have been so taken with it, so I think…oh cool, there’s still room for this kind of music and there’s no need to do anything drastic with this song, it’s perfectly fine on its own.”
Giddens included a Patsy Cline song because “she’s the best singer in the world. I started reading about her and she just seemed so cool and really smart about her career; she was really invested in it and understood that music isn’t just a career, it’s your life. I would’ve put her on the album anyway because she’s so iconic, but [her story] was just the cherry on top.”
The self-penned “Angel City” is the only fully composed song on the album and the only one told from a personal viewpoint. “I’m learning how to be a blood, sweat and tears kind of writer,” Giddens admits. “Previously, I had to be moved emotionally, so I wrote songs that were historically based, but “Angel City” was the first one I’d written as a sort of emotional response to something that had happened in my life. It just came to me over the course of a night and then I didn’t really think about it any further. T-Bone wanted to put it on the record and it certainly fit into the whole emotion of paying homage to people who helped you on the way.”
Giddens will be performing at The TLA April 10th and fans can expect some Carolina Chocolate Drops songs, a few tunes from her Lost on the River project and of course, a large selection of songs from Tomorrow Is My Turn. Giddens says the songs that were cut from the album are not currently on the set list. She thinks they will come out soon, but they’re just “waiting for their time”.
Already thinking about her next project, Giddens is performing songs at her live shows that she hopes will make the next record. “The themes will not be any different from what I’ve been doing my entire musical career,” Giddens laughs, “it’ll be deep, though.”
