Our Native Daughters- Songs Of Our Native Daughters

Originally posted to Instagram, July 12, 2020.

Not really a #sundaycountryvinyl, more of a #sundayfolkvinyl, but I feel like people who check @stephanatelyvinyl’s tag would be interested in a “banjo supergroup” album with beautiful harmony vocals. ‘Songs Of Our Native Daughters’ is that, and so much more. It is a retelling of American history, and hopefully a turning point in musical history.

Chances are, if you imagine a banjo player, you think of a white man. If you imagine a figure from American history, you probably also think of a white man. This is not because only white men play banjo (originally a West African instrument) or contribute to history, it’s because we live in a colonialist, patriarchal society. To combat this, Rhiannon Giddens, the greatest banjo player of our time, assembled a group of Black women folk musicians to record songs honoring their foremothers, centering an instrument the ancestors would have known well.

Musically, the power of this album comes from hearing one instrument played in so many ways, evoking the sounds of so many places -West Africa, Caribbean nations, and rural America- most of which Americans do not associate with the banjo. It also comes from hearing the way different songwriters interpret the same concept. Rhiannon Giddens takes centuries-old poems, stories and melodies and relates them to modern issues. Amythyst Kiah finds hints of the marginalized in old folk songs and expands them into the full stories they should have been- “Polly Ann’s Hammer” is about the true hero of “John Henry”, previously reduced to a “little woman” who “drove steel like a man.” Allison Russell’s contributions span generations, from “Quasheba, Quasheba,” about her first recorded ancestor, a woman stolen from Africa, to “You Are Not Alone,” a message of hope for her young daughter. Leyla McCalla’s tenor banjo is the happiest sound, even as she sings about “Lavi Difisil” (“Hard Life”.) The one cover on the album, Bob Marley’s “Slave Driver”, is my new gold standard for banjo covers: not a hick parody, but a powerful reimagining with the same urgency as the original. If this album doesn’t make you rethink what you knew about banjo music, and history, you weren’t paying attention.