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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Rihannon Giddens Discusses "You're the One"
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Rihannon Giddens Discusses "You're the One"
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- [00:00]
McDonald's Ad Voice
I' ma put you on, nephew.
- [00:01]
Rhiannon Giddens
All right, unc.
- [00:02]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Welcome to McDonald's.
- [00:03]
Rhiannon Giddens
Can I take your order, miss?
- [00:04]
McDonald's Ad Voice
I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back. Listener supported WNYC Studios.
- [00:31]
Host (Kusha Navadar)
This is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. Hey, thanks for spending part of your day with us. I hope you're staying cool and in the shade. Coming up on today's show, we'll learn about the new film Sebastian from its writer, director and star. We'll talk to food activist and cookbook author Grace Young about where to get a great dumpling in New York City. I'm really excited about that one. And we will learn about a new documentary that lifts the curtain on how national security experts are preparing for another insurrection. That's the plan. So let's get this started.
- [01:11]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
See you on your knees as I go walking by begging darling, baby, please don't leave me high and dry. Well, I tell you right now my dear old used to be that ship, it ain't just sail, it's way on out to sea Getting smaller every minute.
- [01:47]
Host (Kusha Navadar)
That's Rhiannon Giddens, a banjo virtuoso, singer, composer, and it's from the song Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad. It's the first track off her latest album, you're the One. Giddens is a self described mission based artist and cultural archivist. And that means that the music she produces is largely based on archival materials and putting new spins on old songs from folk traditions around the world, like from Americana and the blues and Irish jigs. And working with those folk traditions and reimagining new music to speak to new themes made her a perfect fit for the Public Song Project, which you might have heard about on our air. She produced an adaptation of I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird. It's a public domain song that was first performed in 1924. Here's a little bit of that song.
- [02:43]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Never had no happiness Never felt no one's caress Just a lonesome bit of humanity Born on a Friday, I guess Blue as anyone can be Clouds are all I ever see.
- [03:07]
Host (Kusha Navadar)
That was Rhiannon Giddens adaptation of the public domain song I'm a Little blue blackbird looking for a bluebird. You'll be able to hear the full version of that track along with all the other public songs that folks have sent in on our Website, and it's on Bandcamp and on Spotify sometime in the coming weeks. And if you'd like to do that, you can head to www.wnyc.org publicsong project for more information. Rhiannon Giddens joined Allison for a listening party last year, around the time of the release of her latest album, you're the One, which is her first record of all original. And we wanted to share parts of that conversation with you again today since she'll be performing in our area this Saturday. It's at the Venetian Theater at Caramore. That's in Katona, New York. Alison started by asking Giddens what she means when she says that she considers herself a mission based artist.
- [04:02]
Rhiannon Giddens
It means that I try to decenter myself in the work that I do and try to shine a light on stories that need to be told. And trying to use my platform to clarify pieces of American history that I think are being twisted in ways that are very harmful and are very present, even though they start four or five hundred years ago. All of those things within a, you know, within an industry that's very much based on money making and all of that. So it's difficult at times. But I, you know, I'm just doing the best I can.
- [04:34]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Sometimes those misinterpretations are purposeful.
- [04:37]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yes, absolutely.
- [04:38]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
So you need people out there correcting the record. However, whether that's through art or through journalism, it's really important.
- [04:43]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah, it is. Because, like, you know, like for me, it started with the banjo. You know, learning that the banjo is an African derived instrument that was invented by black people in the Caribbean. And then, so my first question, you know, my first realization, oh my gosh, that's completely different to what I know. And then it's like, why don't I know that? And in whose best interest is it that I don't know that? So that's kind of driven me for the last 15 years.
- [05:05]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Do these missions tend to find you or do you go in search of them?
- [05:10]
Rhiannon Giddens
A little bit of everything. I kind of follow where curiosity leads me. I read a lot and I'll hit something in a book and then get another book and then kind of follow the trail, you know. And then sometimes I'm offered an opportunity. Like Omar was an opportunity offered to me. I didn't even know his story. And, you know, the folks at Spoleto said, do you know Omar Ibn Said? And I was like, what? And I'm from North Carolina. And he lived, you know, all of his American life was In North Carolina.
- [05:34]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
I was like, what?
- [05:35]
Rhiannon Giddens
Or almost all of it. I was like, how do I not know this? And that just, you know, gets me all hyped up. And I'm like, yes, I'll do it. You know, Write an opera.
- [05:42]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Yes.
- [05:42]
Rhiannon Giddens
And then I'm like, oh, how do I do this?
- [05:46]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Now I have to write an opera.
- [05:47]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah.
- [05:48]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
When you first began thinking about this project, was it always going to be an album, original songs, or did some of these songs exist and you just kind of been holding them for the right time?
- [05:58]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah, all of them I've been holding for the right time because. Because like, as you mentioned, I do feel that Mission, you know, a lot of my work is really in that. In that realm. And it's been, you know, it's been a. I won't say it's a burd and it's something I gladly carry, but it's a weight. And I have songs based on slave narratives and I'm describing really complex things in shows, in five minute bites, talking about minstrelsy and all this kind of stuff. And I just kind of realized I was kind of getting burned out a little bit. And it felt like it was just time to have a full band record and it was time to explore other sides of my artistry. So I had these songs that had been waiting. They didn't fit on the other mission based records. They were just waiting. And I said, well, it's time. Let's expand the sound. Let's partner with a producer who can bring me into world that I have listened to and loved but have not really made art in yet.
- [06:49]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
When you're writing your own songs, are you drawn to different material and different themes than the work of your mission based work, which, as you described, is a little bit heavy. In the best way.
- [07:00]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah, totally in the best way.
- [07:01]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
But no, when you were describing what you do, it made me think of like being like a librarian, like somebody who has a degree in library sciences, who knows how to go find things and make connections and put them together. And that's tired.
- [07:15]
Rhiannon Giddens
It is tiring work. I do kind of consider myself a cultural archaeologist or something. You know what I mean? It's just. It's a lot of digging and I love it. But yes, it does carry a lot of responsibility.
- [07:24]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
So what do you get to write about when you're not being in. When you don't have that hat on, when you have your. I'm just gonna write songs. What are some themes that are attractive to you?
- [07:31]
Rhiannon Giddens
Well, I'm so into strong Women, obviously. And, you know, the kind of idea of, you know, you've been treated wrong or this relationship didn't work out or whatever, it needs to end with a woman. Kind of either a kiss off or I'm gonna. I'm just gonna, you know, get my own strength together. So there's quite a few, like, well, it didn't work out with the man songs. But at the end of each one, it's like, but I'm gonna move on, and I'm gonna. You know, I'm gonna go to the next thing and I'm gonna. I'm gonna take my strength from what I've learned from this, you know. And so that is. That is important to me. I never want the woman on the floor at the end of any of these songs, you know, they need to be walking away, gone. Okay, this might not have been a great situation, but I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get something better next time.
- [08:11]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Get your Gloria Gaynor picture up there for inspiration.
- [08:13]
Rhiannon Giddens
Exactly.
- [08:15]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
My guest is Rhiannon Giddens. We're talking about her new album youm're the One. Let's listen to a little bit of the title track youk're the One. Will you share a little background on this before we hear it?
- [08:24]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah, this was. This one's kind of like a little different because it's one that really is a very personal song. A lot of the other ones kind of draw from emotional moments that I've had. But then I kind of spin them into sort of, you know, just fables or stories. But this one I wrote after the birth of my. And my first child. I'd had pretty heavy postpartum depression for the first year. And that kind of puts a veil between you and your emotions. And when I had my boy, my second child, for some reason I didn't have it that time. And I was like, oh, this is what it feels like to have a newborn and not have that curtain in front of you. And so I sat down and wrote the song. Kind of like, you know, going from the grays of that kind of fog and haze into a new Technicolor world. Like, that's how I felt. And I was like. And I, of course, have all of that love for my first daughter. But it was just that. That initial kind of that. That. The hormones, all of those things, I felt them for the first time. And I was like, oh, that's what they're talking about, you know? So I wrote the song, you're the One.
- [09:23]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Let's Take a listen.
- [09:45]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
I knew you were the one. Were my one and only. And I knew that you would always know me. Cause you were the one. Kept me from feeling so sad and lonely in my life. And I never knew life could be so wonderful that there could be someone who was so beautiful. And I never knew that I could be so free. Love someone like you and I'm gonna love you forever. And I'll be with you worse and for better. And I never thought I'd.
- [10:41]
Rhiannon Giddens
You're the one that's.
- [10:43]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
You're the one. It's the name of Ran Giddins new album for people. I think most people who listen to BNYC know, but in case the few who don't. You were trained as an opera singer, what did you discover about your voice? Singing in a. More. A more pop style and some of the more pop styles. And also working with this producer, Jack Splash, who's worked with, like, Kendrick and Alicia Keys.
- [11:04]
Rhiannon Giddens
Well, I mean, nothing new really, because, like, a lot of these. I wrote lot a these songs over the last 14 years, so they've been kind of in my voice, you know, like, you're the one. You know, my son is 10 years old now, you know, so it's like these are all explorations. And I've always been exploring, you know, ever since I kind of left the operatic stage. And, you know, my first, you know, the first band I was in was a Celtic band in North Carolina, and they had to suffer through me learning how to use a mic and, you know, trying to take out some of that voice that I've been putting in for the last, you know, five years. So it's. It was a chance to put all of that together and also to match that with a bigger sound palette. That's what I hadn't really done. I've kind of been. It's kind of a companion record to my first solo record, Tomorrow's My Turn, which was all covers, but it was all people I was inspired by. A lot of those are the same folks that I'm inspired by. But now in the course of this career, I've learned how to write and I've become a songwriter. And so it kind of comes. It's not like a circle circle, more like a spiral kind of come around. And so my voice has definitely developed more since then and I've learned more. But I've always been interested in having all of these styles live together because they come out of the same. The common American sort of cultural. Well, that, you know, all of the genres come out of. So that's. That's. That's always been my thing, for sure.
- [12:29]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
How did working with Jack Splash, first of all, why did you want to work with him?
- [12:32]
Rhiannon Giddens
Well, because he had, you know, access to these different sounds, an expansion of that sound palette. And also, he was somebody who was interested in meeting me halfway, you know, that he was. He was intrigued by the sort of acoustic instruments that I was bringing and the musicians that I was bringing. And he loved the demos, and he really wanted to come from where I was coming from. And so it was important that it wasn't either all the way over to my side or over to his side. It was like we found this organic sort of middle place, which was what I wanted. And we did that by talking about it ahead of time, but also bringing. I brought a group of musicians. He had a group of musicians, and then they all played together, which is, you know, not always done now because it's not the cheapest thing in the world to do. But I knew I was really committed to that. I was like, let's have. You know, if we need to shorten the time, that's fine, but let's have everybody together, because that's where we're gonna find an organic, you know, meld of our two approaches, rather than having to do it in the. In the booth, having to do it, you know, with the knobs and the faders and. And the laying on tracks and things. So at one point, like, the first thing that we recorded was yous, L.A. man. And that was like 13 people on the floor, you know, like, all at the same time. And that's when we realized after we recorded that we were like, oh, this is a sound. This is a thing. And we could have only done that live.
- [13:48]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
My guest is Rhiannon Giddens. The name of the album is yous're the One. So you have one of our favorite people, Jason Isbell, is on the record in the song yet to Be, and it's this love song. Why did you want to work with him on this album? Why this particular song?
- [14:05]
Rhiannon Giddens
Well, I've always. I've known about Jason, you know, obviously, and we're Twitter friends. I've actually never met him, which is hilarious in person.
- [14:12]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Oh, my gosh.
- [14:12]
Rhiannon Giddens
But I admire him so much. And we'd exchange some, you know, messages and. And, you know, there was a few things that didn't pan out. And then this came on, and I was just like, man, he's just. He's walking the walk and he's living his life in the way that I admire. And I just, you know, I like working with people like that. And then of course, he's a great musician and a great, you know, songwriter and all that. So I said, you know, would you be interested in seeing Knocked it out of the Park? And, you know, it's a song about an interracial couple. It's a song about people coming from two different parts of the world. So I know I needed another voice in there to create that, you know, that narrative of two voices coming together. And he was gracious enough to lend his voice to it.
- [14:50]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
I think he's got an authenticity to his voice and also to his person.
- [14:55]
Rhiannon Giddens
His spirit, which is what comes out, you know. And this is why I wanted to work with him. Because I'm just like, life's too short to be working with posers. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care how good they sound. If they're not living their life the way, you know, in a way that's authentic, then I don't. I'm not interested.
- [15:10]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Life's too short to work with posers. Needs to be a shirt. Let's listen to yet to Be from Rhiannon Giddens with Jason Isbell.
- [15:24]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
She was born on a farm working the clay she ran off when she was 16 down a country road with nowhere to go she knew that she had to leave she hopped a one way train With a ticket to ride in the third class Back with the others she watched the farm fade away Just hoping and praying she'd have a better life than a mother's It's a long, long way from where we've been the here and tomorrow is better than it was back then Today may break your heart but tomorrow holds the key we come so far but the best is yet to be he was born on the farm but he didn't want to stay and daddy said he was a fool before we crept away in the dead of the night and got a steamer out of Liverpool well, it's far, far away from the greenfields of.
- [16:46]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
That'S yet to Be. Jason Isbell with Rhiannon Giddens. I've interviewed Jason a few times, and, you know, he's really candid about how his sobriety made a huge difference in his career and in his art. What was a big life change or a big decision you made that, you know, has made a difference in your art?
- [17:03]
Rhiannon Giddens
I mean, the big touchstone for me was, you know, leaving the operatic world. Although, Al, I didn't know I was Going to be coming back to it through the back door was leaving that world as a full time performer and entering in the folk world, but doing it in a way that was connected to an elder. So learning that the banjo was an African American instrument and being able to study and play with and absorb the music of Joe Thompson, who was one of the last black fiddlers of the old tradition, you know, where it had been passed down as an oral tradition, you know, father to son or brother to brother or whatever that led back to the time. And he was kind of holding onto this family tradition. Nobody in his family had picked it up. And here the, you know, the original Carolina Chocolate Drops came. Me and Dom Flemons and Justin Robinson and got to play with him for years. He was like. He was 83 or 86, I think, when we met him. And that being able to start my whole acoustic career with that as its centerpiece was really important because it made everything that followed have to follow. You know, okay, what does this mean? Why am I doing it? Am I. You know, and it just set everything in the right place to survive in the music industry, which is so destructive. And you have to have this kind of core of why you're doing it. And so Joe is in the center of that. You know, it was originally telling his story, sharing his music, and then it turned into this wider thing of trying to illuminate these untold stories of American music and American culture. So I feel like that was my crossroads, you know, where I ceased being a vocalist or just a vocalist, and I turned into, you know, an instrumentalist and a storyteller, you know, down this path. And I'm so grateful, so grateful.
- [18:49]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
What's it like for you to hear someone else like Jason sing your songs?
- [18:52]
Rhiannon Giddens
Oh, it's fun. I was like, oh, yeah, that's great. And I was like, now when I do it live, I take a couple of the way he went through it. I was like, that's a great way through those. Through that line, you know, I love it. It doesn't happen a lot because a lot of my songs up until now have been culturally specific, but I'm hoping to hear some of these songs maybe done by other people and to see how they fit, and that would be delightful.
- [19:16]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
You wrote a song, Another Wasted Life, about the suicide of Kalief Browder. Young man. I think people in New York know the story, but a young man who had been detained on Rikers for years. He was accused of stealing a backpack. The charges were later dropped. His story is one of those it's just a heartbreaking story. One what about it led to a song. When did you write it?
- [19:38]
Rhiannon Giddens
I wrote it when I learned about not only was he detained, he was put into solitary for over two years, and then when he was released, he committed suicide. Those are the things that really made me just. Oh, furious, grief stricken, all of the things. And I wrote the song right after I heard about the story, and then I kind of put it away, you know, so when this record came, you know, was kind of coalescing, I knew that I wanted that song to be sort of the mission within this record and be the centerpiece, and I knew that I wanted to use it to raise awareness of the problem of innocent people sitting in jail and being forgotten.
- [20:14]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Let's hear another wasted life.
- [20:29]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Sam. Another day, another youth, another story, man. Go. Truth. The commentary uncooked and full of cloud agreements. Does it matter what the crime? If indeed there was this time? He's given solitary time. Institutional Capri.
- [21:48]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
All right, Just listening to that. Someone else you need to sing with Natalie Merchant.
- [21:52]
Rhiannon Giddens
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
- [21:53]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
I can see you guys ripping that song.
- [21:55]
Rhiannon Giddens
That'd be amazing. Like, we know each other and stuff, and we, like, we talk about that. So we need to do something together, you know, it's gonna happen someday.
- [22:02]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
I also want to say you partnered with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project for the video for this, and people should definitely check it out. I do want to go to the other end of the spectrum because this song has made me laugh and smile and you know who I'm talking about. You put the sugar in my bowl. It starts, like, super bouncy and sassy, and it's very flirty. And then you kind of get down to business about women seeking pleasure.
- [22:26]
Rhiannon Giddens
Yeah. I mean, it's homage to all those double entendre songs from the twenties where they were just, like, saying it and saying it.
- [22:34]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Let's listen.
- [22:35]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Well, they try and they fail no matter what the style there's only one or runner goes that extra mile. Nobody fits me like you do not one man measures up. Now there's them that say a woman doesn't know her own mind. She must be meek and biddable, graceful and kind.
- [23:09]
Rhiannon Giddens
She mustn't ask for what she wants.
- [23:13]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
The whole night long where there's them that like to say that and them that are wrong. You put the pepper in my dish and the schwa in my de vivre. You're the key to every wish and the cure to my fever.
- [23:42]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Joie de vivre. Larry. That song just, like, comes with a Feather boa.
- [23:49]
Rhiannon Giddens
Next time for the reissue, we will put a feather boa in there.
- [23:54]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Is that a character you're playing or is that a part of you?
- [23:56]
Rhiannon Giddens
I mean, it doesn't matter. You know what I mean? I get to this place where it's all the same, and it's just when I'm singing that song, I am that person, you know? And it is a part of me because I couldn't have written it otherwise, you know?
- [24:09]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
So, Rhianne, I'm asking people to think about 13 people sitting on the floor playing as we go out on Louisiana. Meant in a man.
- [24:15]
Rhiannon Giddens
Well, they weren't sitting on the floor, but they were all. All together in a studio. Alta. That's what I meant by on the floor. All together, playing, figuring each other out and smiling like lunatics. It was so fun.
- [24:26]
Interviewer (Allison Stewart)
Thanks for coming to the studio.
- [24:27]
Rhiannon Giddens
Thank.
- [24:37]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
You. Tripped up my mind? You Louisiana man? You burned my bed? Lit up my sky? You Louisiana man? I never knew that things were going to get so far? I never knew where? I never knew that you were going to break my heart? You, you, you Louisiana man.
- [25:35]
Host (Kusha Navadar)
That was Allison's conversation with composer, vocalist, and banjo player Rhiannon Giddens. She'll be playing at the Venetian Theater at Caramore in Katona, New York, on Saturday evening.
- [25:48]
Rhiannon Giddens
I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I love Geico's fast and friendly claim service.
- [25:52]
McDonald's Ad Voice
Well, that's how Geico gets 97.
- [25:54]
Rhiannon Giddens
Customer satisfaction. Yeah, I'll let you get back to your first food.
- [25:59]
McDonald's Ad Voice
So are you just going to watch me eat? Get more than just savings. Get more with Geico. I'm going put you on, nephew.
- [26:04]
Rhiannon Giddens
All right.
- [26:05]
Singer (Rhiannon Giddens performing songs)
Welcome to McDonald's.
- [26:06]
Rhiannon Giddens
Can I take your order, miss?
- [26:07]
McDonald's Ad Voice
I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.