New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Rhiannon Giddens-singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and founding member of Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops-has released a new song, "Black Is the Color." The song is streaming now, and is also available as an instant download with pre-orders of her upcoming T Bone Burnett-produced debut album Tomorrow Is My Turn, due out February 10, with the vinyl to follow on March 3. Listen to the song, as well as other instant download tracks "Don't Let It Trouble Your Mind" and "Shake Sugaree," below, and pre-order the album on iTunes and in the Top40-Charts.com Store.
Giddens appears and sings in a new Apple commercial that debuted yesterday. It features her rendition of the
George & Ira Gershwin classic "Love Is Here to Stay." The video finds a young girl discovering an old recording of her grandmother at a younger age (Rhiannon Giddens) singing, and then watches as the girl uses her iPad to reimagine the song in a modern context. Rhiannon's vocals manage to transcend their modern context as she expertly executes her role, singing the grandmother's original vocals with ease, lending the sense that the song could have been recorded decades ago. Watch the commercial here:
T Bone Burnett first worked with Giddens when she performed last fall at a concert he curated at New York City's Town Hall that was later broadcast on Showtime: Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the
Music of "Inside Llewyn Davis," which is due January 13 on Nonesuch Records and available to pre-order here. In the Huffington Post's "5 Memorable Moments From the 'Inside Llewyn Davis' Concert," the top spot went to "Dear Lord: Rhiannon Giddens. The chances are a good many people haven't heard of Rhiannon Giddens, but that's probably going to change ... Giddens performed two songs … and earned the night's one in-show standing ovation."
Backstage, Burnett was immediately moved to ask if he could produce a record with her. "It was clear the first time I heard her at rehearsal that Rhiannon is next in a long line of singers that include Marian Anderson, Odetta, Mahalia Jackson, Rosetta Tharpe," Burnett says. "We need that person in our culture."
Tomorrow Is My Turn was recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville, with a multi-generational group of players whom Burnett assembled. Among them are fiddle player Gabe Witcher and double bassist Paul Kowert of label-mates Punch Brothers; percussionist Jack Ashford of Motown's renowned Funk Brothers; drummer Jay Bellerose; guitarist Colin Linden; legendary backup singer Tata Vega; veteran Nashville session bassist
Dennis Crouch; and Giddens' Drops touring band-mates, multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins and beat-boxer Adam Matta.
Tomorrow Is My Turn follows Giddens' work with Elvis Costello, Taylor Goldsmith, Jim James, and Marcus Mumford on Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, an album also produced by Burnett that was released in November 2014. Her contribution was hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as the "showstopper … evoking antebellum blues with a magnificent voice that interrogates the myths stirred up at Big Pink." The New York Times agreed, saying "On lead vocals she's the album's revelation, singing melodies that hark back to Celtic modes with a decisive presence and a haunting grace."
