Beyonce goes country in new song

Freedom Highay

Rhiannon Gidden's "Freedom Highway" takes an expansive look at the Black experience in America. "Better Get It Right the First Time" utilizes a gospel-y call and response format to tell the tragic story of a Black life that mattered. However, Giddens goes all the way back to slavery days for the lyrics to "At the Purchaser's Option." In between, "Birmingham Sunday" hearkens back to the Civil Rights movement and that relatively recent fight for freedom. ...

Factory Girl

As a follow up of sorts to her superb solo debut, "Tomorrow Is My Turn," "Factory Girl," a five song vinyl EP released for Record Store Day, doesn't exactly expand any parameters, but does showcase Rhiannon Giddens' remarkable dexterity as both an artist and interpreter of traditional melodies. Like an earlier work, 2009's "All the Pretty Horses" (recorded with Roger Gold and Mara Shea), it finds her covering a series of mostly obscure folk tunes, but ...

Tomorrow is My Turn

Rhiannon Giddens is best known for her role in Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the album "Tomorrow Is My Turn" gives the soulful singer ample opportunity to stretch out on a wide range of cover songs. Produced by T Bone Burnett, a man that knows his way around Americana music, this album is a wonderful showcase for Giddens' talent. To state the obvious, Giddens has a flexible singing voice. She shows this off by going from the soulful "Last Kind Words" to the thumping ...