Country comfort and Joy
Two of America’s rising stars offer a traditional tour-de-force
JOY WILLIAMS: Front Porch (Thirty Tigers) Verdict: Nashville star goes back to basics RHIANNON GIDDENS: There Is No Other (Nonesuch) Verdict: Sparkling Americana
They used to call them firework groups — bands who would dazzle briefly before fading away as swiftly as they appeared.
It was a term that could have been coined for The Civil Wars, the indie- orientated country duo of Joy Williams and John Paul White who swept all before them for three years after breaking through in 2011.
Adele took them on tour and called them ‘the best live band I’ve ever seen’. Their first album, the bluesy Barton hollow, sold hundreds of thousands and won two Grammy Awards. Williams and White seemed set for a glittering future.
But a year after their self-titled sequel, The Civil Wars were no more. Living up to their combative name, they split acrimoniously in circumstances never fully explained beyond a vague statement citing ‘ internal discord and irreconcilable differences’.
Williams wasted no time in striking out on her own. A church minister’s daughter who had moved to Nashville from her native California to further her ambitions, she ditched the acoustic Americana and made a glossy solo album, Venus, inspired by Kate Bush and Annie Lennox. her first solo gig was a London showcase with electronic backing, extravagant lighting and holograms.
The change of gear backfired spectacularly. Venus left fans cold and Williams, 36, has gone back to soft harmonies and traditional acoustic support on Front Porch. Made in Tennessee while pregnant with her second child, it’s packed with lovelorn ballads and pedal steel. It’s the solo record she should have made in the first place.
A return to home comforts is a recurring, if vague, theme. But happiness, in true Nashville fashion, is usually hard won. Williams admits to feeling ‘a little splintered and battered’ on the title track. When Does A heart Move On is winsome but lonesome. She sounds sweet,
but fragile, on All I Need. The two best tracks are less nebulous. hotel St. Cecilia details an illicit tryst in a luxury Texan boarding house. Preacher’s Daughter looks at Joy’s strained relationship with her late father. ‘I was the one he could not tame,’ she sighs, before conceding: ‘The apple doesn’t fall far.’ you can’t help but wonder what John Paul White, who last month released his own solo album, might have added to songs that find his former sidekick on familiar ground. But Williams, expected to announce UK solo dates shortly, seems happy to pick up from where The Civil Wars left off, alone.
RhIANNON GIDDeNS is another U.S. vocalist who began in a successful touring ensemble. She made her name singing and playing banjo with old-time folk band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but her take on vintage Americana is decidedly versatile.
APeRFORMeR who studied opera at Oberlin Conservatory, she wrote a ballet score and starred with Marcus Mumford and elvis Costello on the Bob Dylan tribute album Lost On The River. her two solo albums have featured country covers (2015’s Tomorrow Is My Turn) and electric blues (2017’s Freedom highway).
here, she works with Italian jazz musician Francesco Turrisi on an album that mixes world music, folk and jazz. Giddens, 42, sings and plays banjo, with Turrisi
adding lute, accordion and Middle eastern drums. It’s ambitious and exuberant, with an immediacy that stems from being recorded in just five days.
Rhiannon’s classical background informs the aria Black Swan, by Italian composer Gian Carlo Menotti, and Trees On The Mountains, from Carlisle Floyd’s opera Susannah. Turrisi’s input becomes clearer on the energetic Italian tune Pizzica Di San Vito.
Whether singing Chicago jazzman Oscar Brown’s Brown Baby or revamping the traditional song Little Margaret, Giddens is hard to pin down. On the evidence of piano spiritual he Will See you Through, she’s an increasingly accomplished songwriter, too.
Both albums are out now. Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco turrisi play the Long Road Festival, Leicestershire, on September 8. they start a UK tour at the Royal Festival hall, London, on November 22 (rhiannongiddens.com).