Rhiannon Giddens

Submitted by shashank.kumar on Thu, 07/31/2014 - 14:07
Sort Name
Giddens Rhiannon
Artist Position
3.00
Affiliated Artists
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Biography (Excerpt)

Rhiannon Giddens' album They’re Calling Me Home was recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi during the COVID-19 lockdown in Ireland. The two expats found themselves drawn to and comforted by the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland, which they recorded at a spare studio on a working farm outside of Dublin. The result is a twelve-song album that speaks to the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical call "home" of death.

Weight
10
Active Artist
No
Facebook URL
https://www.facebook.com/RhiannonGiddensMusic
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/rhiannongiddens
Instagram URL
https://instagram.com/rhiannongiddens
Youtube URL
https://www.youtube.com/user/rhiannongiddens

Rhiannon Giddens’ new album, They're Calling Me Home, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, was released April 9 on Nonesuch Records; vinyl is due June 11. Giddens and Turrisi, who both live in Ireland when they aren’t on tour, have been there since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The two expats found themselves drawn to the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland during lockdown. Exploring the emotions brought up by the moment, Giddens and Turrisi decamped to Hellfire, a small studio on a working farm outside of Dublin, to record these songs over six days. The result is They're Calling Me Home, a twelve-track album that speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical "call home" of death, which has been a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis.

They're Calling Me Home features several traditional songs that Giddens hasn't played for years, including some of the first old-time pieces she ever learned: "I Shall Not Be Moved," "Black As Crow (Dearest Dear)" and "Waterbound." The album also includes a new song Giddens wrote, “Avalon,” as well as an Italian lullaby, “Nenna Nenna," that Turrisi used to sing to his infant daughter that took on new resonance during the lockdown.

Giddens says of Alice Gerrard, the folk music pioneer, who wrote "Calling Me Home," the video which for can be seen above: "Some people just know how to tap into a tradition and an emotion so deep that it sounds like a song that has always been around—Alice Gerrard is one of those rarities; 'Calling Me Home' struck me forcefully and deeply the first time I heard it, and every time since. This song just wanted to be sung and so I listened."

They’re Calling Me Home also includes two well known songs about death: "Amazing Grace" and "O Death."

The minstrel banjo, accordion and frame drums that have become characteristic of the pair’s sound are well represented on the album, but it’s the viola and cello banjo combination that captures unexpected emotion and intensity. Joining them at key moments are Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu and Irish traditional musician Emer Mayock on flute, whistle, and pipes. Engineer Ben Rawlins was key to the shape and sound of the record while Giddens and Turrisi produced and Kim Rosen mastered.

They’re Calling Me Home is the follow-up to Giddens' 2019 album with Turrisi, there is no Other, of which Pitchfork said, "There are few artists so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration." Giddens earned a Grammy Award nomination (her sixth) for the album, which is at once a condemnation of "othering" and a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience.

In the past two years alone Rhiannon Giddens has been profiled in the New Yorker, featured on multiple magazine covers, and appeared in Ken Burns' Country Music on PBS and Samuel L. Jackson's Epix series Enslaved, among other appearances. She received the inaugural Legacy of Americana Award at the Americana Awards & Honors, composed her first opera (with a forthcoming debut at Spoleto Festival USA), shared remote performances for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR's Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, and was named Artistic Director of the Silk Road Ensemble.

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Latest Release

  • October 11, 2022

    Rhiannon Giddens wrote “Build a House” for the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth in 2020; she performs it here with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. The song, which then inspired Giddens’ children’s book of the same name (out on Candlewick Press), tells of African Americans who were forcibly enslaved and brought to the US to build houses they were not allowed to live in, tend to families who were not their own, and sow the seeds that fed a nation—while being left with only scraps themselves. It depicts a family’s resilience in the face of violence and sorrow.

News

  • March 8, 2023

    Rhiannon Giddens and Molly Tuttle are featured in a new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum exhibit American Currents: State of the Music, which highlights significant developments in country music over the past year. The exhibit opened at the Nashville museum last night and runs until February 2024. Tuttle's display includes her grandfather's guitar and the clothing pictured on the cover of her Grammy-winning album Crooked Tree; Giddens's celebrates her Grammy-winning album They're Calling Me Home; her Carnegie Hall Perspectives series; her debut book, Build a House; and her opera Omar.

  • March 7, 2023

    Rhiannon Giddens’s second book, We Could Fly, is due October 10, from Candlewick Press. The picture book, a companion to her debut book, Build a House, released last October, gives wing to a tale of grace and transcendence, with illustrations by acclaimed artist Briana Mukodiri Uchendu. The new book draws on lyrics from the song “We Could Fly,” which Giddens wrote with Dirk Powell and recorded for her 2017 Nonesuch album, Freedom Highway. It draws on a heritage of African folklore for a dialogue between a mother and daughter, paired with illustrations that celebrate love, resilience, and the spiritual power of the “old-time ways”—tradition and shared cultural memory—to sustain and uplift.

Tour

Thu, Apr 13
Boston, MA
WBUR CitySpace
Thu, Apr 13
Boston, MA
WBUR CitySpace
Thu, Apr 27
Aberdeen,
Music Hall
Thu, Apr 27
Aberdeen,
Music Hall
Fri, Apr 28
Edinburgh,
Assembly Room
Fri, Apr 28
Edinburgh,
Assembly Room
Sat, Apr 29
Gateshead,
Sage
Sat, Apr 29
Gateshead,
Sage
Sun, Apr 30
Perth,
Perth Concert Hall
Sun, Apr 30
Perth,
Perth Concert Hall
Thu, May 11
London,
Union Chapel
Thu, May 11
London,
Union Chapel
Fri, May 12
Norwich,
St Andrew's & Blackfriars' Hall
Fri, May 12
Norwich,
St Andrew's & Blackfriars' Hall
Sat, May 13
Birmingham,
Town Hall
Sat, May 13
Birmingham,
Town Hall
Sun, May 14
Essex,
Saffron Hall
Sun, May 14
Essex,
Saffron Hall
Fri, May 26
Knoxville, TN
World's Fair Park
Fri, May 26
Knoxville, TN
World's Fair Park

Photos

About Rhiannon Giddens

  • Rhiannon Giddens’ new album, They're Calling Me Home, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, was released April 9 on Nonesuch Records; vinyl is due June 11. Giddens and Turrisi, who both live in Ireland when they aren’t on tour, have been there since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The two expats found themselves drawn to the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland during lockdown. Exploring the emotions brought up by the moment, Giddens and Turrisi decamped to Hellfire, a small studio on a working farm outside of Dublin, to record these songs over six days. The result is They're Calling Me Home, a twelve-track album that speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical "call home" of death, which has been a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis.

    They're Calling Me Home features several traditional songs that Giddens hasn't played for years, including some of the first old-time pieces she ever learned: "I Shall Not Be Moved," "Black As Crow (Dearest Dear)" and "Waterbound." The album also includes a new song Giddens wrote, “Avalon,” as well as an Italian lullaby, “Nenna Nenna," that Turrisi used to sing to his infant daughter that took on new resonance during the lockdown.

    Giddens says of Alice Gerrard, the folk music pioneer, who wrote "Calling Me Home," the video which for can be seen above: "Some people just know how to tap into a tradition and an emotion so deep that it sounds like a song that has always been around—Alice Gerrard is one of those rarities; 'Calling Me Home' struck me forcefully and deeply the first time I heard it, and every time since. This song just wanted to be sung and so I listened."

    They’re Calling Me Home also includes two well known songs about death: "Amazing Grace" and "O Death."

    The minstrel banjo, accordion and frame drums that have become characteristic of the pair’s sound are well represented on the album, but it’s the viola and cello banjo combination that captures unexpected emotion and intensity. Joining them at key moments are Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu and Irish traditional musician Emer Mayock on flute, whistle, and pipes. Engineer Ben Rawlins was key to the shape and sound of the record while Giddens and Turrisi produced and Kim Rosen mastered.

    They’re Calling Me Home is the follow-up to Giddens' 2019 album with Turrisi, there is no Other, of which Pitchfork said, "There are few artists so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration." Giddens earned a Grammy Award nomination (her sixth) for the album, which is at once a condemnation of "othering" and a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience.

    In the past two years alone Rhiannon Giddens has been profiled in the New Yorker, featured on multiple magazine covers, and appeared in Ken Burns' Country Music on PBS and Samuel L. Jackson's Epix series Enslaved, among other appearances. She received the inaugural Legacy of Americana Award at the Americana Awards & Honors, composed her first opera (with a forthcoming debut at Spoleto Festival USA), shared remote performances for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert and NPR's Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, and was named Artistic Director of the Silk Road Ensemble.