OUR NATIVE DAUGHTERS ~ Songs of Our Native Daughters
![[Image: image.jpg?c=yVtMpIK-rkFeVcojA5hoWCpQg_7i...xGXts=&f=5]](https://rovimusic.rovicorp.com/image.jpg?c=yVtMpIK-rkFeVcojA5hoWCpQg_7iAU1wjqLgK_xGXts=&f=5)
Our Native Daughters are Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell. They are all accomplished musicians and singers in their own right, (as well as being involved in various other bands) the common ground being mixed race ancestry, roots firmly anchored in folk music, and the centuries long sung protest so beloved and well preserved by many marginalised sectors of society.
This is a tour de force IMHO, and whatismore, it is likeable; intelligent voices updating histories and laments, from women’s perspectives, often with great wit and at a highly intellectual and impeccably researched level while losing none of the pathos, emotion and sometimes brutal matter of factness associated with keeping stories alive in the vocal tradition. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a feminist tirade – it’s not – it’s humanist; it is (as it should be) persistent in reinforcing and honouring all those layers of overlooked women, who little known to them, and despite often utterly appalling, degrading conditions, were actually holding tight and strengthening the scant threads of a much more tightly woven future foundation for their female descendants.
The daughters pay homage to their ancestors, re-imagining and re-telling stories about real people and real pain, one example being their song “Polly Ann” which derives from “The Ballad of John Henry” (which takes many and varied versions, I gather). Polly Ann is the ‘little woman’ named in the ballad and John Henry is the folk hero who, to prove his worth as a productive labourer, in competition with new-fangled machinery, drove steel equally as fast as a steam hammer (not that it proved a very helpful exercise since he keeled over and died from the strain shortly thereafter), but while he lay dying, Polly Ann took up that hammer and did just as good a job as a man – she simply had to I expect, (even if allegorically speaking) in order to provide for the family. Our Native Daughters gave Polly Ann a voice and wrote a ditty dealing with her, instead of her husband, and it’s this 180° angle that is so revealing.
Although these songs are mostly a re-telling of horrors we like to think belong in the distant past, shockingly there is still relevance – literally millions of people remain enslaved in varying degrees, in many parts of the world. Seems to me that the human race is taking an awfully long time to wake up.
Known for her prowess in folk/old-time music/bluegrass/country/Americana, etc., etc, (and I suspect, a genius IQ) Rhiannon Giddens trained as an opera singer after graduating from North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Leyla McCalla studied cello and chamber music at the University of New York, and although I can’t find a whole lot of biographical info on Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell, it’s evident that they are respected, musically speaking. They all play the banjo which one can easily deduce from the cover artwork, and between them, they also wield the violin, guitar, bass, cello, mandolin and more. I think this is an important recording, culturally speaking, and I would imagine that’s why it’s on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label.
This clip is not available in my country, but it might be in yours ... "Quesheba Quesheba" -
Our Native Daughters are Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell. They are all accomplished musicians and singers in their own right, (as well as being involved in various other bands) the common ground being mixed race ancestry, roots firmly anchored in folk music, and the centuries long sung protest so beloved and well preserved by many marginalised sectors of society.
This is a tour de force IMHO, and whatismore, it is likeable; intelligent voices updating histories and laments, from women’s perspectives, often with great wit and at a highly intellectual and impeccably researched level while losing none of the pathos, emotion and sometimes brutal matter of factness associated with keeping stories alive in the vocal tradition. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is a feminist tirade – it’s not – it’s humanist; it is (as it should be) persistent in reinforcing and honouring all those layers of overlooked women, who little known to them, and despite often utterly appalling, degrading conditions, were actually holding tight and strengthening the scant threads of a much more tightly woven future foundation for their female descendants.
The daughters pay homage to their ancestors, re-imagining and re-telling stories about real people and real pain, one example being their song “Polly Ann” which derives from “The Ballad of John Henry” (which takes many and varied versions, I gather). Polly Ann is the ‘little woman’ named in the ballad and John Henry is the folk hero who, to prove his worth as a productive labourer, in competition with new-fangled machinery, drove steel equally as fast as a steam hammer (not that it proved a very helpful exercise since he keeled over and died from the strain shortly thereafter), but while he lay dying, Polly Ann took up that hammer and did just as good a job as a man – she simply had to I expect, (even if allegorically speaking) in order to provide for the family. Our Native Daughters gave Polly Ann a voice and wrote a ditty dealing with her, instead of her husband, and it’s this 180° angle that is so revealing.
Although these songs are mostly a re-telling of horrors we like to think belong in the distant past, shockingly there is still relevance – literally millions of people remain enslaved in varying degrees, in many parts of the world. Seems to me that the human race is taking an awfully long time to wake up.
Known for her prowess in folk/old-time music/bluegrass/country/Americana, etc., etc, (and I suspect, a genius IQ) Rhiannon Giddens trained as an opera singer after graduating from North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Leyla McCalla studied cello and chamber music at the University of New York, and although I can’t find a whole lot of biographical info on Amythyst Kiah and Allison Russell, it’s evident that they are respected, musically speaking. They all play the banjo which one can easily deduce from the cover artwork, and between them, they also wield the violin, guitar, bass, cello, mandolin and more. I think this is an important recording, culturally speaking, and I would imagine that’s why it’s on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label.
This clip is not available in my country, but it might be in yours ... "Quesheba Quesheba" -
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson
