Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome stuff. Never
told your protection to buy Heart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And is that time of year here in the US
that we come to celebrate Black History Month? Just to
put a time stamp, it is February fourth, twenty twenty five.
And yes, this month is really difficult for me to pronounce,
so that's just going to be a whole flub. Apologies
in advance because I can't say February. Well, there's too
(00:40):
many rs in there anyway, And yes, it is when
we celebrate Black History Month, and ain't nothing any racist
group can say about it, because we're going to do
it and as in fact, we're going to stretch it
out as long as we want to. So with all
of that, we thought we want to we would start
off with a bang for a feminist around the World
(01:00):
segment and talk about the American musician storyteller and I'm
calling her a historian, Rhianna and Giddons. I have seen
an influx about her work and her contributions to the
music world as well as to the black community recently,
and I love it because she deserves all the flowers,
and she does get a lot of flowers, but we're
gonna keep going. I don't want to brag, but I
(01:23):
am going to about the fact that I've actually known
about her for quite some time. In fact, Rihanna and
Giddens is one of those that I was able to
see live a few times. And this is when I
was actually going out and doing things and socializing and
actually liked going to listen to music live music. I
don't like it now, I'm too old. I'm that crowd
that was like, it's too loud to wash my airplux.
(01:45):
But once upon a time when I did like it,
I was able to see her in the band Carolina
Chocolate Drops, and I'm telling you their shows. I still
clearly remember some of the best performances. I can't even
remember the name of a venue you, but I remember
the performances, including her dancing, and I believe they call
it flat footed dancing. So good, it's so good. But
(02:09):
with that, even though again she's already a worldwide figure
and has been praised for a lot of her work
in art artistry, we still wanted to celebrate here on
the show her work and legacy as she continues to
build it. Obviously, because it's still going so Giddons is
a gifted musician with many talents under her belt, including fiddle, banjo, dancing,
(02:31):
and of course singing. Her music is filled with soul,
ancestral tributes, and storytelling. She grew up with her family
in the mountains of North Carolina. Her lineage includes African American,
Native American, and European American, so they say it's very diverse.
Both she and her sister have grown up with the
love of music and went on to get degrees in
(02:54):
conservatories as in fact, I believe her sister runs one,
so lot lot of music and a lot of talent
in this family. Giddens even studied opera at Oberlin College
and that's one of her specialties. And her voice is
so unique. It's such a beautiful uh sound and tone,
so many things. Gidden's background also includes Scottish traditional music
(03:17):
and has performed and contributed to many different folk groups
and festivals and even beyond, including operas. I believe she's
worked with Italian artists. She's definitely worked with a lot
of classical people. Yo Yoma believe he's one of the
people that she has worked with as well. She's a
giant list of all the big and famous people that
she's worked with. I think she opened up for Elvis Costello,
(03:40):
which you know, our friend of the show, Hollyween, huge fan,
huge fan, but they've opened up for them as well.
And with her amazing ability to perform and showcase her talents, Uh,
she's able to add storytelling to her artistry. Like everything
that she does, even if it sounds just like a song,
(04:00):
has a story. She does a great rendition of do Right,
which I know from Roger Rabbit, but I believe, I
believe's a pathty Cline song. But she does a great
rendition of that song. You have going to good chance
to listen to it. And here's a bit from her
own site. Rihannon Giddins has made a singular iconic career
(04:23):
out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its
miles deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about
every field imaginable. A two time Grammy Award winning singer
and multi instrumentalist, MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, pull A Surprise winner,
and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddons has centered
her work around the mission of lifting up people whose
(04:45):
contributions to American music history have previously been overlooked or erased,
and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country's
musical origins through art and yeah, obviously we're gonna go
a little bit deeper into what she's been doing. But
that's exactly why I feel like she's one of those
that should start off our Black History Month, people who
(05:06):
are able to accurately portray as well as dictate and
give us and some of her works should be celebrated immediately.
So in two thousand and six, she helped form the
group Carolina Chocolate Drops with Don Flemons and Justin Robinson.
So here's a bit of information about the group from
her sight Rhannegiddons dot com. The Carolina Chocolate Drops were
(05:29):
an innovative black string band founded in two thousand and six.
The original members Don Flemons, Rhann and Giddons and Justin
Robinson's with assists from Souley Greg Wilson, spent a lot
of time with the revered string band. Elder Joe Thompson,
an eighty six year old fiddler from Mibin, North Carolina.
His music formed the core of their original set list,
but blues drug band members, originals, novelty songs, ballads, and
(05:52):
other kinds of Americana rounded out their repertoire. They won
the last Official Folk Music Grammy in twenty ten for
their None Such release, and if you get a chance
to listen to their award winning album, it is fantastic.
There's so many good things and I'm I'm pretty sure
and I need to look back into this that some
of these songs were actually songs from enslaved people's from
(06:18):
way back when and they just brought it back again.
Such a phenomenals album, such great music. Their performances are amazing,
and yeah, they do a lot of like jug playing.
I believe they did a lot of like mouth music
as well as a watchboard. So good, so good, I
can't talk a less about it. She was the last
(06:39):
original member of the group and even since then she's
not slowed down. Her performances and musical contributions has earned
her many different awards, including the first American to be
awarded as the Folk Singer of the Year from the
BBC two Focal Awards, and the first woman in person
of color to be awarded the Steve Martin Price for
Excellence in Banjo and bluegrass, and I feel if you
(07:00):
know who Steve Martin is, you know he is a
really great banjo player. Yeah, her work in artistry in
playing the banjo is mesmerizing, and it's obvious she has
(07:21):
a deep connection to this specific instrument. In an interview
she did for Variety, she talks about the legacy of
the banjo and its connection to the black community in
an article written by Chris Willman. In that article, she says, well,
I'll always have to start here, and I'm surprised. I
don't know why that it's still such an unknown thing
that black people invented the banjo. If that's your only takeaway,
(07:43):
I've done something. But if you weren't lucky enough to
know somebody who knew the real story, why would you
know that. I didn't know that until I was an adult.
And that shifts your whole view of what we've been
told about American music. If the very foundation of what
we've been told is as wrong as it is, what
does that mean for everything that's built on top of it?
And then she continues elaborating history isn't simple, especially American history,
(08:06):
which is super complicated because of the way that America
came to be, and the amounts of different cultures that
mixed and mingled, and the economic juggernaut that was slavery.
The banjo is existing in this world, and I guess
what I want people to understand is that you can't
talk about the banjo without talking about slavery. You have
to talk about slavery. You have to talk about minstrelsy.
(08:26):
You have to talk about the segregation of American music.
Those are the three main points. And if you're not
talking about those things when you talk about the banjo,
then you're just serving a simplified narrative that's actually doing
us harm because it's not just simplified, it's actually false.
It actually lies, which is amazing to me how deeply
rooted they are and how powerful they are. So this
(08:48):
article was talking about a special she was doing about
the history of the banjo and music and all that,
and I found that article really fascinating and a great read,
because yes, we have talked about how often history has
been whitewashed and taken away from those who truly contributed
and then forgotten. So I love that we are talking
(09:10):
about it, and she has continued to talk about it
to elevate the story with her platform and with her
taking the time to educate people on the true history
of music. She's been hard at work and telling those
stories and unearthing the many who have contributed even more so.
Here's a quote from a UNC dot Edo article titled
Rihannon Giddens connects History and music, and this is kind
(09:32):
of the part of the work that she has done
in order to give us more and more information. Gidden's
residency began in spring twenty twenty two with a goal
of quote highlighting stories untold and voices unheard. She said,
my aim was to celebrate the cultural contributions of those
who came before us in my art, and to bring
to light the impact of black and Indigenous populations that
(09:55):
resided in Chapel Hill. Gidden's work centers on uncovering and
lifting up overlooked people and forgotten or erased musical origins.
Before she conducted much of her historical research digitally, finding
sheet music from the eighteen hundreds, advertisements foreign slaved People
ads for runaways at Carolina Getten spent hours delving into
the robust archives of Wilson Library with the help of
(10:18):
archivists and research assistance. These kinds of things have played
a huge part in my songwriting and composition, she said,
But I've never had the opportunity to hold documents in
my hand, to chase things down, to really dig into things.
That's so much history. And again it's one of those
things that we have to acknowledge how much work she
(10:39):
has put in into telling us the truth, giving us
so much amazing information and content. And with all of this,
of course, she continues to earn accolades on top of accolades,
some of them we mentioned earlier including International Folk Music Awards,
Americana Music Awards, Grammy for the Best Folk Album, The Again,
(11:00):
the MacArthur Fellowship Again, and The Pull of Surprise in
music for Omar, an opera based on Omar bin said
and his life story. So this was actually something she
was working on, I believe during COVID, and so it
was released in twenty twenty two or twenty twenty three.
And this is from her site. Here's what she's up
(11:20):
to currently. Quote. She is the current artistic director of
the Yo Yo Ma founded Silk Road Ensemble, hosts a
TV show on PBS My Music with Rhiann and Giddons,
and has hosted two podcasts, Aria Code from New York
City's NPR affiliated station WQXR, which ran for three seasons,
and American Railroad from Silk Road. Giddens has published two
(11:44):
children's books and written and performed music for the soundtrack
of Red Dead Redemption two, one of the best selling
video games of all times. Pause here because my partner
was playing this and I did. I actually stopped a
way that music. Who's playing this? I was able to
recognize and pinpoint who it was, just saying myself kudos,
(12:05):
thank you. Anyway, going on, she's appeared as a recurring
cast member of ABC's hit drama Nashville. So she's doing
some acting as a music history expert on Kenburn's Country
music series on PBS, and in twenty twenty five, she
will launch her music her own music festival in Durham,
(12:25):
North Carolina, called Biscuits and Banjo's to celebrate black culture
outside the mainstream. I really want to go to this.
I think we need to go to this.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm in that's not that far.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
It's not far. It's not far, and I definitely want
to celebrate that. Obviously. Again, with all of her works
and accomplishments. We are condensing this down by a lot,
by a lot, but go and take a listen to
her music and her work. It's something you have to
experience firsthand because when we talk about passion and soul,
(12:58):
she to me is the epitome of that. The music
that she plays, that she writes, that she performs it
truly like is her. Like I said, I was able
to pick her out of a game that I don't
even know anything about outside of I think he dies
a syphilis. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Well, I'm going to I'm going to tell you that's
not what happened.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Okay, maybe that's.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
What happened to your partner and his playthrough, but that's
not the ultimate ending.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I don't know. Wow, maybe consumption is that when it
is one of those two things.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
No, still not right, But I appreciate that you're able
to pick it out. That's I try it. Oh well,
I mean, this is an amazing story and obviously she's
doing so so much a music festival and acting and
music and history. It's amazing video games. Well, listeners, please
(14:03):
let us know if you have any thoughts on this
or any suggestions for who we should cover next. You
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I've Never Told You. We're also on YouTube. We have
(14:23):
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and O contrutor Joey, thank you, and thanks to you
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