Rhiannon Giddens has an American story to tell. Her music is soaked in the past, and often about events gone by, but the singer has her eye on the future and what it can be.
Giddens was a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a band that explored old time and African-American string band music. She released her first solo record in 2015, and her second solo album, “Freedom Highway,” is just out now. Giddens is a singer who, on her latest, aims to not lose sight of the horrors of slavery and the struggles of the civil rights movement and how those parts of history have shaped America today. The title track of the new record is the well-known Staples Singers song, a joyful soulful blues-gospel protest march, about the long walk toward freedom, and about the beauty and nobility of perseverance. Giddens also sings “Birmingham Sunday,” a song written by Richard Farina about the Ku Klux Klan bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama in 1963.
The new album is sweeping in its scope, and like the themes, the music moves from touches of hymns to cajun to more poppy terrain. In a time of large-scale protests against President Trump’s White House, and in an increase of reported threats against ethnic and religious minorities, Giddens’ record sounds less like a flashback to the late-’60s and more like something very much of the moment.
The Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell duo takes the stage at Infinity Hall, 2 Front St., Hartford, Sunday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $34 to $64. 866-666-6306 and infinityhall.com.
