Rhiannon Giddens. click on link to take you to a PBS interview
Rhiannon Giddens (b. 2/21/77) is an American musician. She is a founding member of the country, blues and old-time music band Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she is the lead singer, fiddle player, and banjo player.
Giddens is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, an alumna of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, and a 2000 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory at Oberlin College, where she studied opera.
In addition to her work with the Grammy-winning Chocolate Drops, Giddens has released two solo albums: Tomorrow Is My Turn (2015) and Freedom Highway (2017). Her 2019 and 2021 albums, There Is No Other and They’re Calling Me Home are collaborations with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. She appears in the Smithsonian Folkways collection documenting Mike Seeger’s final trip through Appalachia in 2009, Just Around The Bend: Survival and Revival in Southern Banjo Styles – Mike Seeger’s Last Documentary (2019.) In 2014, she participated in the T Bone Burnett-produced project titled The New Basement Tapes along with several other musicians, which set a series of recently discovered Bob Dylan lyrics to newly composed music. The resulting album, Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, was a top-40 Billboard album.
In 2005, Giddens, who at that time was spending time competing in Scottish music competitions (specializing in the Gaelic lilting tradition, also known as mouth music,) attended the Black Banjo Then and Now Gathering, in Boone, North Carolina. There she met Dom Flemons and Sule Greg Wilson. The three started playing together professionally as a “postmodern string band”, Sankofa Strings. During that same time period, Giddens was also a regular caller at local contra dances and featured in a Celtic music band called Gaelwynd. Later in 2005, after both Gaelwynd and Sankofa Strings had released CD albums, Giddens and Flemons teamed up with other musicians and expanded the Sankofa Strings sound into what was to become the Grammy winning Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Discography and Bibliography:
Albums with The Carolina Chocolate Drops = 7
Albums with Gaelwynd = 2
Album as a Member of The New Basement Tapes = 1
Albums as Rhiannon Giddens = 11
Album as a Member of Our Native Daughters = 1
Albums of Additional collaborations = 9
Other significant appearances (lead, duet, trio, featured solo) = 29
Four children’s books will be published in fall 2022
Awards and Nominations:
between 2010 and 2022, Giddens has been nominated and/or won no less than 25
Some thing to share:
Giddens is multiethnic in ancestry, from her European-American father (David Giddens) and her African- and Native-American mother (Deborah Jamieson), who met as college students in the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. She and her sister grew up in Greensboro and nearby rural Gibsonville. Her sister Lalenja Harrington is a director for Beyond Academics, a four-year certificate program supporting students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A singer and songwriter herself, Harrington occasionally collaborates with her sister on musical projects.
Giddens married Irish musician Michael Laffan in 2007. They have a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2013; however, they had separated as of 2018. She lives in Limerick, Ireland. In 2019, Giddens began a relationship with her musical partner Francesco Turrisi. They released an album together in May 2019 and again in April 2021.
Official website: here
Sources: wikipedia
This was originally posted on 3/20/22.
Glyn is the host of Mixed Music Bag. Glyn wants us to share about a musician or band that starts with the letters G or H.
I want to add one more song by Rhiannon and the Carolina Chocolate Drops with The Chieftains from what has become a cherished album, “Voice of Ages,” which is The Chieftains teaming up with some of the best musicians out there today.
Tao Talk 
Am going to check this gal out! She sounds good!
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She’s great!
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I love her voice and her interpretive ability. She’s lived about 20 lives already! (K)
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She is really talented and yes she has!
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That is quite a cool pick, Lisa. Rhiannon Giddens really draws you in. Not only is it obvious she’s a talented musician, but I also think her voice is beautiful. Perhaps most important is her engaging personality and enthusiasm to bring greater understanding to the role of African-Americans when comes to country and bluegrass, genres you typically don’t associate with Black people.
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Thanks much, Christian. Not sure if you know it, but the banjo is an African instrument that was brought to North America by slaves. I probably learned that from Rhiannon! :)
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She is really unusual…I love the fact she is a musician on top of being a great vocalist…Great find Lisa.
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Thank you, Max. I think I may have first seen her in Ken Burns’ Country Music Series but not sure. She is everything you say she is. I was kind of surprised when I listened to her “opera album” but as I gathered material for the post I understood it was no real surprise!
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She has so many avenues to go down. That hurts sometimes if people cannot put you in a box but it shows how talented she it.
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I saw her with Carolina Chocolate Drops at a neighborhood festival in 2010; the first I’d heard of them. I know a musician who auditioned at several music schools. Oberlin Conservatory is the only one they didn’t get into, so graduating from there takes some doing.
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Thanks for sharing those tasty tidbits, Steve.
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She’s brand new to me, Lisa. I do like what I hear here…definitely worthy of further listening.🎧
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I like what I’ve heard from her as well. She has gotten a lot of valuable collaborations for someone so young.
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Thanks for the introduction to this artist, Lisa. I enjoyed the selections of her sound that you provided in the post… a wonderful voice and truly versatile performer.
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You’re welcome, and well-said, Steve.
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Still thinking about the classical piece with her recent partner; it is extraordinary. My sweety and I were both quite entranced by it.
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Glad you like what you are hearing. On another digression, I love the use of the theramin in the Leaf Rapids album. Do they play it in their live performances? I also really like the keyboards. It’s an excellent quality production. I got the real CD in the mail yesterday :)
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Oh that’s wonderful, Lisa. Yes, Keri (the main lead singer, not the one on “Night Shift”) plays the theremin in their live shows. Really kind of you to support them and I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. 🙂
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Cool. Is the dark-haired on Keri or is Keri the blond-haired one?
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Sorry… been a busy day! Keri is the dark-haired one you thought sounded a bit like Emmylou; Joanna is the blonde who’s the drummer.
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ok, thanks. Just was curious.
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My pleasure! Ask away. 🙂
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You can never have too much of her music. (K)
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<3
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At first I was like, ‘wops, did we just go back in time?’ Then I noticed it’s a previously published. I still fully stand behind of what I said in March 2022. Rhiannon Giddens draws you in with her musicianship, beautiful voice and engaging personality. Her announcement of the song in the second clip is just beautiful.
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Christian, thank you for the wonderful comment and glad you remembered her from before.
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She is really talented…as soon I saw the videos I remembered her. Love the banjo…and that voice can’t be beat.
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Max, I think it was from her or Ken Burns’ Country music series that I learned that the banjo is an African musical instrument. She’s marvelous and she’s just getting started.
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That could be where I first remembered her.
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I have a piece (yes only one) on my play list, I confess :) I downloaded it by mistake – now I’d say – quite happily.
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Fantastic. Have you heard that Voice of Ages album? If you haven’t if you can find it out there (Probably a playlist of it on YT) give it a listen and let me know what you think :)
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I will indeed, and thank you Li :)
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YW Paul :)
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:)
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It’s so funny. Yesterday I was listening to one of our wonderful ladies of Canadian music thinking, “I gotta tell Lisa about her. Oh, but her Women in Music thing is over for the year… ” and yet, here you are!
What a great voice and talented woman Rhiannon is!
I was going to mention Allison Russell ;-)
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Glad you know both Rhiannon and Allison. Yes, they’ve both been covered, and yes, both very talented musicians :)
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Ah hah! I shoulda known you would have covered Allison ;-)
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I guess I had missed this one.
It’s funny, you say she ran away to Vancouver and follow with She went Dawson College (which is Montreal) ;-)
Isn’t she fabulous?
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You’d have to do some independent research to find out which or if both are correct. I pretty much cut and paste from wiki. Each piece of data usually has a source link in the footnotes that you can follow to get elaboration. If you decide to go down the rabbit hole, please share what you find, will you?
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Oh, no, I was just surprised. And, for all I know, there IS a Dawson College in BC!
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Here ya go: https://www.nlc.bc.ca/campus/dawson-creek/
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That is SO STUPID of me! Of course. Dawson Creek, BC…
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Wait a minute, isn’t Dawson Creek the name of a TV show? Sounds familiar?
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Yes, it is! I erroneously thought it was Canadian but I checked it out. Takes place in Massachussets (I didn’t realise it was American).
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