2012-09-30

Rhiannon Giddens and Leyla McCalla

The forest of microphones stopped me from getting many photos of Rhiannon Giddens and Leyla McCalla.

Rhiannon Giddens plays the fiddle and has tremendous vocal power, which may have something to do with her past as an opera singer – and showed no sign of flagging despite being more than a little pregnant. Here she's singing Ethel Waters' No Man's Mama, a song from the 1920's celebrating divorce, as well as a tremendous set in Gaelic as Dom Flemons' plays the drum in the background.

One great thing about seeing the Drops in concert is that they take time to explain the songs, the instruments, and the history of both. In the final photo long-term touring Cellist Leyla McCalla is translating the lyrics for Rosemarie, which she sings in Haitian Creole while playing the banjo.

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I have broken the links to hundreds and hundreds of photos, which will take a long time to repair. The workaround is to replace "photo.matthewpiers" in the link URL with "matthewpiers.smugmug". Awkward, but only temporary.

This is happening because I have revamped matthewpiers dot com. More of what I write and photograph will be going there, so check it out as well.

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