Rhiannon Giddens is a guest on Dolly Parton's America, the new WNYC podcast that explores why Parton and her music bring people together in a divided world. In the episode, which you can hear here, host Jad Abumrad looks to Giddens's performance of the Appalachian ballad "Little Margaret," on her new album, there is no Other, with Francesco Turrisi on the Iranian frame drum, the daf, to find connections across cultures. "There are these moments that remind us that we all come from the same source," Giddens says. "The human story is about migration, it is about movement, it is about one group moves from A to B and in that, they affect and are themselves affected."
Rhiannon Giddens is a guest on Dolly Parton's America, the new podcast from WNYC Studios hosted by Jad Abumrad that explores why Parton and her music bring people of all stripes together in a highly divided world. In the latest episode, which you can hear below, Abumrad connects Parton's Tennessee mountain home with his own father's childhood home in Lebanon, then looks to Giddens and her performance of the Appalachian ballad "Little Margaret," on her new album, there is no Other, with Francesco Turrisi on the Iranian frame drum, the daf, to find connections across cultures.
"There is this connection to: 'Where did it come from,'" Giddens suggests. "My whole thing is just as within America, there are these connections we have simplified and erased, to our detriment, connecting an Appalachian ballad that was begun as an English ballad, but then where did the English ballad come from? Where did that style of melismatic singing come from? Where do the modes come from, of trance, say? You ever listen to somebody sing fourteen verses of an Appalachian ballad, that's trance. You hear an Iranian daf, that's a trance instrument that is used for Sufi, it's used for folk. There are these moments that remind us that we all come from the same source."
Giddens later concludes: "The human story is about migration, it is about movement, it is about one group moves from A to B and in that, they affect and are themselves affected. And whether it ends up in America, ends up in Lebanon, it's always a story of: 'Who came through? Where did we go? Where did we come from?'"
You can listen to the latest episode of Dolly Parton's America, titled "Neon Moss," here:
there is no Other, Giddens's album with Turrisi, is at once a condemnation of “othering” and a celebration of the spread of ideas, connectivity, and shared experience. To pick up, head to the Nonesuch Store, iTunes, and Amazon, and listen on Spotify and Apple Music.
Giddens and Turrisi concluded their US fall tour last weekend and will take the tour to the UK and Europe later this fall and winter. They return to perform in the States in February. For details, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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