I've been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn't, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.
Interpretation
Rhiannon Giddens expresses her desire to give voice to untold stories from the Civil War era through her music.
In this quote, Rhiannon Giddens reflects on her creative process of reinterpreting traditional folk songs and composing new pieces that imagine the voices and experiences of marginalized groups during the Civil War. She emphasizes the importance of resurrecting silenced narratives, particularly those of black individuals who were historically overlooked in mainstream music and culture, thereby highlighting the urgent need to acknowledge and celebrate their stories through artistic expression.
In practice
During a lecture on music history, this quote can be used to illustrate how artists reshape narratives.
When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.
I think it's important that everybody has access to music, and not just people who live in cities or who can afford to drive to the nearest city.
In order to understand the history of the banjo, and the history of bluegrass music, we need to move beyond the narrative we've inherited, beyond generalizations that bluegrass is mostly derived from a Scotch-Irish tradition with influences from Africa. It is actually a complex Creole music that comes from multiple cultures.
The question is not how do we get diversity into bluegrass, but how do we get diversity back into bluegrass?
In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems.
There was this moment when we made 'Superunknown': the Seattle music scene had suddenly ended up on an international stage with huge success.
It's not about battling the original artists when I record these songs, it's about paying tribute to them.
Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, 'Oh man, this is the stuff.' It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.
What I like about pop music, and why I'm still attracted to it, is that in the end it becomes our folk music.
With pop music and pop musicians, you know everything about everyone all the time, particularly their physical appearance. With female musicians, that's made a big thing of, and I think people, certainly with me, have appreciated a bit of mystery.
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