Rhiannon Giddens is an African-American banjoist who is helping to reinvent American folk music, particularly by demonstrating the place blacks have occupied in country music. You can see and hear her at length in Ken Burns’ documentary series Country Music, broadcast on PBS.
The North Carolina-born musician is a prolific performer in solo, duo and group projects. She is now musical director of the Silkroad Ensemble, a group founded in 2000 by cellist Yo-Yo Ma to bring together musicians from different cultures on five continents. We hear Western violins, Chinese flutes and Indian tablas. Steel guitar and accordion.
American Railroad tells the musical story of the construction of America’s transcontinental railroad. As in Canada, the railroad was a myth, but one with many shadows.
During construction, native lands were stolen, Chinese and Japanese workers were overexploited, and their families were forbidden to board the train once it was completed. Not to mention the exploitation of black communities. And the conflicts between white Catholics and Protestants. This album recounts all this by modifying traditional songs and composing new ones. These include Have You Seen My Man, created by Franco-American Cécile McLorin Salvant.
The twelve musicians, six of whom sing, are hyper-competent and have great fun improvising. Rhiannon Giddens leads the way with a velvet glove in an iron hand. It’s a political rail journey that takes in many musical paths, with or without switches and crossings. It’s an album that needs to be listened to in its entirety to understand its complexity, with a very playful finale. In addition to the musical creation, Rhiannon Giddens has created a podcast to give us a better understanding of the social-political context of railroad building. Not sure this opus will be on Donald Trump’s Christmas list. Definitely too woke for the PQ’s Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
We may be heading for a period as dark as the one described in this record. I really hope I’m wrong.
