Rhiannon Giddens To Release First Solo Album in Six Years
Rhiannon Giddens announces her first solo album in six years, You’re the One, will be released August 18 on Nonesuch Records. The album is the GRAMMY, MacArthur and Pulitzer-winning singer, composer, and instrumentalist’s third solo studio album and her first of all original songs. This collection of 12 songs, written over the course of Giddens’ career, draws from the folk music that she knows so deeply, as well as its pop descendants. The album was produced by Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June, Tank and the Bangas) and recorded at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami with a band composed of Giddens’s closest musical collaborators from the past decade alongside musicians from Splash’s own Rolodex, topped off with a horn section, making an impressive ten- to twelve-person ensemble.
Giddens has also announced the biggest headlining shows of her career, including performances at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in September, plus the Barbican Centre in London, the Beacon Theatre in New York City, and the Ace Theater in Los Angeles next spring.
The first single from the album – its title track – is also available today. “You’re the One” was inspired by a moment Giddens had with her son not long after he was born (he’s now ten years old, and she has a fourteen-year-old daughter as well).
“Your life has changed forever, and you don’t know it until you’re in the middle of it and it hits you,” Giddens says. “I held his little cheek up to my face, and was just reminded, ‘Oh my God, my children—they have every bit of my heart.'”
Giddens made You’re the One with some of her closest musical collaborators from the past decade, including her partner, Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, plus multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, bassist Jason Sypher, and Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu. The album features electric and upright bass, conga, Cajun and Piano accordions, guitars, a Western string section, and Miami horns, among other instruments, capturing the inclusive spirit that channels through all of her work.
“I hope that people just hear American music,” Giddens says. “Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock—it’s all there. I like to be where it meets organically. They’re fun songs, and I wanted them to have as much of a chance as they could to reach people who might dig them but don’t know anything about what I do. If they’re introduced to me through this record, they might go listen to other music I’ve made and make some new discoveries.”
Available for pre-order/pre-save HERE.
Upcoming Tour:
May 11: Union Chapel, London, UK~
May 12: Saint Andrews & Blackfriars Hall at Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Norwich, UK~
May 13: Birmingham Town Hall, Birmingham, England~
May 14: Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, UK~
May 26: Our Common Nature: An Appalachian Celebration, Knoxville, TN
May 27: Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, TN%
June 8-11: Ojai Festival, Ojai, CA~
July 6: Festival dei Due Mondi, Spoleto, Italy~
July 12: Umbria Jazz, Perugia, Italy~
July 15: Pori Jazz Festival, Pori, FI$
July 17: Wigmore Hall, London, UK$
September 13: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA^
September 14: The Sheldon, St. Louis, MO^
September 15: Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN^
September 17: Athenaeum Center, Chicago, IL*
September 18: Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor, MI*
September 19: St. Cecilia Music Center, Grand Rapids, MI^
September 20: Royal Conservatory, Toronto, ON^
September 22: House of Blues, Boston, MA^
September 23: University of Maine, Orono, ME^
September 24: FreshGrass MASS MoCa Festival, North Adams, MA
September 26: Keswick Theater, Philadelphia, PA^
September 27: University of Maryland, College Park, MD^
September 28: Carolina Theater, Greensboro, NC^
September 30: University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Wilmington, NC^
October 1: Modlin Center at University of Richmond, Richmond, VA+
October 2: Paramount Theatre, Charlottesville, VA*
November 17: Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley, CA@
February 21, 2024: Barbican Centre, London, UK
March 16, 2024: Beacon Theatre, New York, NY
April 25, 2024: Ace Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
~with Francesco Turrisi
$with Christian McBride & Francesco Turrisi
%with Dirk Powell & Justin Robinson
^with Adia Victoria
*with Charly Lowry
+with The Legendary Ingramettes
@Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens
