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Rhiannon Giddens and her former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson are to reunite on an album of North Carolina fiddle and banjo music (a mix of instrumentals and songs). Produced by Giddens and Joseph “joebass” DeJarnette, What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow is out on April 18th, 2025, on Nonesuch Records. Featuring Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle, they have also shared a video for the album track ‘Hook and Line’, filmed at the legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician Joe Thompson’s home in Mebane, NC.
Hook and Line is the first tune Thompson learned; Giddens and Robinson continued the legacy by learning it from him. The duo and four other string musicians including the multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, will embark on the Rhiannon Giddens & The Old-Time Revue North America touring April.
“With the assaults on reality going on in the world today, we wanted to offer another kind of record, like walking back onto a gravel or dirt road while a stampede goes the other way,” Giddens says. “With the cicada choir, this record could’ve only happened at a certain time in the last 120 years. We doubled down on place, time, realness, and old-fashioned front porch music. It’s a reminder that another way exists, with music made for your community’s enjoyment and for dancing–not solely for commercial purposes.
“What is the role of music in our society?” she wonders. “How do we de-couple it from unfettered capitalism, where music is a product and musicians are incidental? How do we use the tools and system that we have been bequeathed in a way that reminds us of other ways of being?”
Robinson adds, “Recording this album felt like being back in the saddle. Just this time, Joe is not here, and his fiddle is under my chin. The album is about home, the cicadas, the storms, the music, and the people who make it feel like home.”
Pre-order What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow: https://giddensrobinson.lnk.to/BlackbirdCrow
Tracklisting: What Did the Blackbird Say
1. Rain Crow
2. Brown’s Dream
3. Hook and Line
4. Pumpkin Pie
5. Duck’s Eyeball
6. Ryestraw
7. Little Brown Jug
8. Going to Raleigh
9. Country Waltz
10. Molly Put the Kettle On
11. Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
12. John Henry
13. Love Somebody
14. Ebenezer
15. Old Joe Clark
16. Old Molly Hare
17. Marching Jaybird
18. Walkin’ in the Parlor
