Album Review: Renée Fleming with Béla Fleck, ‘The Fiddle and the Drum’
Renowned opera soprano Renée Fleming and master banjoist Béla Fleck possess an intuitive ability to dwell deeply in the notes, chords, and lyrics of the songs they have selected for their new collaborative album The Fiddle and the Drum. Each musician recognizes the enduring emotional power of music and the many ways it shapes our experiences, with individual songs serving as touchstones of distant memories of personal turmoil or social disruption. While the two first discussed making an album together several years ago, they were finally able to meet in 2023 to launch this project. On The Fiddle and the Drum, the duo is joined by a host of special guests, including Dolly Parton, Aoife O’Donovan, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull, and Sarah Jarosz, who share vocals, sing harmony, or add special musical touches to the 10 songs drawn from traditional ballads and folk songs.
On the opening track, a medley of “He’s Gone Away” and A.P. Carter’s “Storms Are on the Ocean,” Fleming and Fleck convey the ponderous gravity of loss that abides for a lifetime. Bryan Sutton’s doleful guitar picking flows under Fleming’s dirge-like lament on “He’s Gone Away,” while Fleck’s bright banjo rolls converse spryly with Stuart Duncan’s fiddle as the lament lifts to something like exultant resignation on “Storms Are on the Ocean.” Parton and Fleming share vocals on the classic “In the Pines,” a sparkling bluegrass rendition that opens with Sam Bush’s tinkling mandolin and also features Parton on high harmony; as the song builds, Fleming and Parton play call and response with their vocals, elevating the song to new heights. Douglas’s mournful Dobro notes unfurl beneath the title track, a solemn reimagining of Joni Mitchell’s original, an anti-war ballad. “My Epitaph” opens sparely with Fleming’s vocals riding over Fleck’s lightly picked banjo; the song, an ode to honoring loved ones while they are still alive and before we create their “epitaph” (“don’t gather around me/ Just to weep and moan”), picks up tempo midway before returning to its spare reflections at its close. Gill lends harmonies to the emotionally resonant “The Scarlet Tide,” while Fleming, Fleck, and the musicians deliver a poignant version of the traditional “The Cuckoo.” The album closes with the gorgeous ode to beauty and transience “Pretty Bird,” featuring the harmonies of Hull and Jarosz.
With The Fiddle and the Drum Renée Fleming and Béla Fleck have lovingly crafted an elegant reimagining of these songs that reflect the emotional gravity and persistence of both personal and public loss.
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The Fiddle and the Drum is available HERE.
