Rhiannon Giddens
"Freedom Highway"
(Nonesuch (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK))
Since stepping away from her old-time string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, to focus on a solo career, folk-soul woman Rhiannon Giddens has moved from strength to strength. On 2014's "The New Basement Tapes," she stood tall as the only woman alongside Elvis Costello and others in putting lost Bob Dylan lyrics to music, and the next year, her T Bone Burnett-produced "Tomorrow Is My Turn" established her as a confident interpreter of songsmiths ranging from Dolly Parton to Charles Aznavour.
With "Freedom Highway," the banjo player and powerhouse vocalist is bolder still. With an album's worth of mostly original songs _ the title cut was penned by Pop Staples, and the Joan Baez-associated "Birmingham Sunday" by Richard Farina _ Giddens takes on the broad sweep of African American history, addressing the inhumanity of slavery in piercing songs such as "At the Purchaser's Option," and the devastating "Julie," about the relationship between a slave and her mistress. Giddens is more comfortable with traditional folk, gospel, and blues (there's an effective cover of Mississippi John Hurt's "The Angels Laid Him Away") than when modernizing her sound with a dash of hip-hop in the heated, well-meaning "Better Get It Right the First Time." But the playfulness of the New Orleans jazz sashay "Hey Bebe" is a light and awful dance tune, and "We Could Fly" holds out hope for salvation with a welcome beauty and grace among songs of struggle that need, more than ever it seems, to be told.
_Dan DeLuca
