Rhiannon Giddens

When I saw this week’s prompt and learned that Rhiannon Giddens’ birthday is in February (b. 2/21/77,) she was my choice.  I originally wrote a post on her for 2022’s Women Music March, then used the post again for Glyn’s Mixed Music Bag.  Looking again for any updates I see Rhiannon is a woman on the move with music.

Rhiannon is an American musician. She was a founding member of the country, blues and old-time music band Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she was the lead singer, fiddle player, and banjo player.

Giddens was born in Greensboro, NC, an alumna of the NC School of Science and Mathematics, and is a 2000 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory at Oberlin College, where she studied opera.

In addition to her work with the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens has released six  solo studio albums, 2 live albums, 2 EPs, and 5 singles.  Of those, two of them 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
Album as a Member of Our Native Daughters = 1
Albums with Silkroad Ensemble = 2
Albums of Additional collaborations = 11
Other significant appearances (lead, duet, trio, featured solo) = 34

Awards and Nominations:
between 2010 and 2022, Giddens has been nominated and/or won no less than 31

In 2022, Rhiannon won a Grammy for Best Folk Album, “They’re Calling Me Home“
In 2023, she won a Jury Award from Society of Composers and Lyricists AND a Pulitzer Prize for “Omar“
In 2026, she has been nominated for Best Folk Album, “What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow” (pending)

Official website: here
Source: wikipedia

The first song I think of when I think of Rhiannon is when she and the Carolina Chocolate Drops jammed with The Chieftains on what has become one of my cherished albums.  “Voice of Ages” has The Chieftains teaming up with some of the best musicians out there today.

Rhiannon will be traveling to 8 U.S. cities this March with Silkroad Ensemble.  Here is a performance with them:

Jim Adams is the host of Song Lyric Sunday.  This week he wanted us to find a song by a person born in February.