I was introduced to both Rhiannon Giddens and to this song in particular by my good friends Lynne O’Malley and Steve Chapman Smith (Hazjak), who do a very respectable version themsleves. As she says in her introduction the song describes the situation of a woman being offered for sale, whose child can also be bought at the discretion of the purchaser. It highlights the plight of the slaves in the USA prior to the civil war (1861-65). Incidently this took place less than 100 years before I was born – that is very recent history.
Here she performing Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotten. A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. She played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down, as she was left-handed. This position meant that she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb. Her signature alternating bass style has become known as “Cotten picking”.
Rhiannon is a fine exponent of the banjo, an instrument that it notoriously difficult to play. The problem seems to be that it doesn’t like to stay in tune. Once tuned, the heat of the players’ body tends to affect it and send it out of tune again. She is also no mean violinist, as can be seen here in a collaboration with the Dubliners and her backing band the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Her latest offering combines her folk roots with the classical stylings of cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a song that she wrote reflecting upon the current pandemic. She says “This song came knocking about a week ago and I had to open the door and let it in. What can I say about what’s been happening, what has happened, and what is continuing to happen, in this country, in the world? There’s too many words and none, all at once. So I let the music speak, as usual. What a thing to mark this 155th anniversary of Juneteenth with that beautiful soul Yo-Yo Ma. Honoured to have it out in the world.”
