Featuring Rhiannon Giddens,(banjo, fiddle, vocals), Amythyst Kiah (guitar, vocals), Leyla McCalla (banjo, cello, vocals), Allison Russell (banjo, clarinet, vocals)
Tonight: Jason Sypher (standup bass), Jamie Dick (drums), Francesco Turrisi (piano, accordion)
Anderson Hall
, 205 South Main Street, Wolfeboro, NH
July 27, 2019
Pride and pain. These daughters don’t let you forget for one minute the pride and pain of the female black experience. In the pride department, they make damn sure you realize that the banjo, that many think of as the quintessential American instrument, is a descendant of gourd fashioned into a string instrument used by Africans long before the painful ascent of slavery. And the fact that their female ancestors endured beatings, rape, separations from kin, and survived, endured, and passed their resilience along to their daughters. The CD of the same name is a statement album. So was this show tonight.
Their set at Anderson Hall was electrifying. The songs, largely from their album "Songs of our Native Daughters", mine historic sources and define the group’s mission to reclaim, actually rejoice in, the stories of their forebears. The four musicians collaborated to work on songs whose lyrics are often third rail subject matter they sourced from troves of archives.
Even the most jolting of them, "Mama’s Cryin’ Long", reinforces strength and resolve. I don’t know how they managed to stitch together such gut-wrenching material in a way that levitates rather than depresses. They’re aiming for an emotional kick to wake you up, to open your white mind/heart to history that matters to them and they want, no, need, you to know about it.
The singing tonight is democratically shared, sometimes solo, often accompanied by one or many others and always with emotional grit. Their personal chemistry, forged over 12 days of composing in a cabin outside Lafayette, LA, as they created their album, bubbles, floats, and penetrates the hall. Voices? Distinct, passionate, charged with the particles of interpretation of historic sources that resonate inside their individual souls. The instruments in their hands are extensions of their inner spirits. When Leyla McCalla switches to cello, (3 minute mark at Newport Folk Festival the day after this show, 7-28-19), it brings an odd but effective European mix to the sound.
The women haven’t chosen popular chestnuts to sing. They’ve delved into 17th, 18th, and 19th century sources. In the spirit of singer songwriters the world over, they’ve re-interpreted old songs or created new songs from the original sources, and filtered them through personal experience. Tonight they’ve given this 98% white audience way up in Wolfeboro, NH, a window into history from a lens rarely so completely focused on their point of view. If there's a note on the music scale between affirmative and righteous, these women are singing in that key all night long.
When they charge into the joyous finale, "Up Above My Head, I Hear Music In The Air," they loosen up in an explosion of dance with Allison Russell swaying in her own mighty cloud of joy.
Foot stomping, hand clapping, banjo plucking, all had the ring of a front porch in the rural south or before that of a clearing in sub-Saharan Africa.
Music is the most soulful way to unearth and honor our various ethnic histories. "Songs Of Our Native Daughters" is a gem in that tradition.
Bringing down the spirit...
Standing ovation...
"Polly Ann's Hammer"...you may have heard of her husband, John Henry. The group's joyful creative energy feels like its shot from a cannon primed with pride, pain, sorrow and commitment. They want the songs to make this mostly white audience not just tap our feet but to see though the window of history from which the lyrics were born. History has always been taught through music. These daughters make sure we get the point.
"Black Myself"
Grand Finale: "Up Above My Head, I Hear Music In The Air," popularized by legendary singer/guitar player Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1947...gospel leaning toward early rock 'n roll, Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah are clearly the metaphorical daughters of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, whose story so clearly represents the strength and resolve of the women they are channeling tonight.
Up above our heads, I can feel the spirits of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Polly Ann Henry, and countless nameless heroines of the women on stage joining hands and shouting jubilant hallelujahs to their sisters on stage below.
Photos, videos by Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
Good and interesting review, Mr. T.
Worth waiting for.😂
Good job with the videos.
Especially love their Grand Finale.
Posted by: Christopher Huggins | November 08, 2019 at 09:50 AM
Giddens is one of my favorites! Must have been an amazing concert, and it was only an hour from us. So glad you wrote this review! If there’s a next time please let us know and even stop by.
Posted by: Susan Bennett | November 08, 2019 at 06:15 PM
from Bernard Ussher
https://youtu.be/M7PvWw97Cq0
Posted by: Bernard Ussher | August 23, 2020 at 03:20 PM