Nee Lewman
बैस्टर्ड
Birds of Chicago - Love in Wartime
In December 2019, No Depression ran a series of articles naming their artists of the decade. The entry for Rihanna Giddens was written by her Our Native Daughters band mate, Allison Russell. Russell wrote about her bandmate with all the passion I felt for Giddens’ music.
I’ve long been one for exploring the musicians that work with artists I love. It creates an intricate web and surprising reaches into unexplored genre territory. Our Native Daughters was a band that crept on me: my initial interest was from Rhiannon who is a NC native and hit the scene as I really came into my fandom for roots music. I was watching her blow up on the scene as it happened. I knew Leyla McCalla from her former partnering with Giddens in Carolina Chocolate Drops. I was starting to listen to Amythyst Kiah both because of a commercial that was part of the Ken Burns Country Music Documentary and she was set to open for Yola at the Cradle in January of 2020 (this got rescheduled for some reason and then cancelled as the pandemic grew in scope). I didn’t really know Russell though and after Soul Step reissued Kiah’s Chest of Glass project, it was her turn.
I was drawn back to that No Depression article and saw the name of the band that she had formed with her husband, Birds of Chicago. I found Love in Wartime on Bandcamp, ordered it and fell in love with it... with JT Nero’s gravelly voice and its juxtaposition to Russell’s beautiful instrument. It was like rediscovering War and the Treaty, but the music has a bit of the tension that exists in that duo’s name but not really their art.
This music was more like Mavis Staples’ You Are Not Alone, her first album produced by Jeff Tweedy and in retrospect, the first album of a new kind of Americana, given its influence here and on other artists (see William Bell’s phenomenal This is Where I Live). Tweedy brought a jangly Americana sensibility to Mavis’s gospel informed soul giving a second wind to one of the all time great Soul Singers but also setting the stage for this “secular gospel”, as Russel and Nero call it, to flourish.
There was also that title. It sums up so much of the last four years. A time of deep concern for me and like minded individuals. Really it does an amazing job of summing up the narrative of this past year. The political unrest. A devastating pandemic uniquely poised to prey on our species’ worst tendencies. The start of what I hope is a systemic response to the foundational racism of this country. My personal journey, spiritually, ideologically as well as with my family and coworkers. Those three words somehow convey all of it and don’t just succumb to it but allow a positive outlook. I struggle with my own belief that I am both a failure and successful, intelligent and dumb, loving and hateful, no better than anyone else and better than everyone else. These, to me, are the themes of this album. It is an album I have spent a lot of time with this past year and will continue to do so in the future. I am very excited to share it with all of you.
RIYL:
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig
Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi - There is No Other
Our Native Daughters - Songs of Our Native Daughters
Leyla McCalla - A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey
Amythyst Kiah and Her Chest of Glass
Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon - Solstice
Yola - Walk Through Fire
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
William Bell - This is Where I Live
War and the Treaty - Healing Tide
Personally, I have been waiting to check out the other projects by Nero and Russel:
JT and the Clouds
Po’ Girl
can purchased here:
In December 2019, No Depression ran a series of articles naming their artists of the decade. The entry for Rihanna Giddens was written by her Our Native Daughters band mate, Allison Russell. Russell wrote about her bandmate with all the passion I felt for Giddens’ music.
I’ve long been one for exploring the musicians that work with artists I love. It creates an intricate web and surprising reaches into unexplored genre territory. Our Native Daughters was a band that crept on me: my initial interest was from Rhiannon who is a NC native and hit the scene as I really came into my fandom for roots music. I was watching her blow up on the scene as it happened. I knew Leyla McCalla from her former partnering with Giddens in Carolina Chocolate Drops. I was starting to listen to Amythyst Kiah both because of a commercial that was part of the Ken Burns Country Music Documentary and she was set to open for Yola at the Cradle in January of 2020 (this got rescheduled for some reason and then cancelled as the pandemic grew in scope). I didn’t really know Russell though and after Soul Step reissued Kiah’s Chest of Glass project, it was her turn.
I was drawn back to that No Depression article and saw the name of the band that she had formed with her husband, Birds of Chicago. I found Love in Wartime on Bandcamp, ordered it and fell in love with it... with JT Nero’s gravelly voice and its juxtaposition to Russell’s beautiful instrument. It was like rediscovering War and the Treaty, but the music has a bit of the tension that exists in that duo’s name but not really their art.
This music was more like Mavis Staples’ You Are Not Alone, her first album produced by Jeff Tweedy and in retrospect, the first album of a new kind of Americana, given its influence here and on other artists (see William Bell’s phenomenal This is Where I Live). Tweedy brought a jangly Americana sensibility to Mavis’s gospel informed soul giving a second wind to one of the all time great Soul Singers but also setting the stage for this “secular gospel”, as Russel and Nero call it, to flourish.
There was also that title. It sums up so much of the last four years. A time of deep concern for me and like minded individuals. Really it does an amazing job of summing up the narrative of this past year. The political unrest. A devastating pandemic uniquely poised to prey on our species’ worst tendencies. The start of what I hope is a systemic response to the foundational racism of this country. My personal journey, spiritually, ideologically as well as with my family and coworkers. Those three words somehow convey all of it and don’t just succumb to it but allow a positive outlook. I struggle with my own belief that I am both a failure and successful, intelligent and dumb, loving and hateful, no better than anyone else and better than everyone else. These, to me, are the themes of this album. It is an album I have spent a lot of time with this past year and will continue to do so in the future. I am very excited to share it with all of you.
RIYL:
Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig
Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi - There is No Other
Our Native Daughters - Songs of Our Native Daughters
Leyla McCalla - A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey
Amythyst Kiah and Her Chest of Glass
Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon - Solstice
Yola - Walk Through Fire
Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone
William Bell - This is Where I Live
War and the Treaty - Healing Tide
Personally, I have been waiting to check out the other projects by Nero and Russel:
JT and the Clouds
Po’ Girl
can purchased here:
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