If the almost-titlepiece of Rhiannon Giddens’ new album were new to your ears, you would probably assume it was a venerable “traditional” song, probably from Appalachia.
Listeners who already knew many traditional Appalachian songs would likely be mightily surprised that they could have hitherto missed such a superb, particularly haunting one.
In fact, Calling Me Home was authored by Alice Gerard; it was titlepiece of her 2002 album, issued in the year of her 68th birthday. (An even better album is Follow the Music, which Alice Gerrard recorded – mostly “live” – in her 80th year)
Now 86, Alice Gerrard (who loves Rhiannon Giddens’ new version) recently said this:
What that song is about, really, is an homage to some of the older people who told me their stories and sang their songs, and who were aware, and proud, to sing so that somebody might be carrying on the songs they were passing to us. Rhiannon, herself, appreciates that aspect of learning the music of the elders.
Rhiannon recently remarked:
You know how singing sad songs makes you feel better in this weird way? Themes of death and homesickness and leaving and loss in all these old traditional songs, they express things so well and so simply. Generations of people have gone through things as bad or worse for many, many, many years, and these songs connect us to those generations. There is a comfort in that: We’re not alone. We’re just the newest kid on the sad block.
Both quotations are from an interview-based article in which Rhiannon Giddens and her partner Francesco Turrisi discuss the new album, and its connection to the current “global pandemic” and to the longer sweep of human history/travail/recovery.
I urge you to read the article, to hear all of the album, and to “discover” Alice Gerrard, here
First, however, please listen to this…and watch closely too – most especially if you love birds in flight:
Footnote:
The photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken early in the morning of 10 February 2020, in the Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat,, western India.
The birds are Eurasian cranes, aka “Common cranes “, Grus grus.
Each year, just before winter, many thousands of them fly from northern Eurasia to South Asia.