You’re The One
NONESUCH
7/10
THE cover of You’re The One is a pretty unmistakable statement of intent. It’s a close-up headshot of the artist, with a front cover tracklisting and bulbous, colourful typefaces. It is instantly evocative of a late 1960s or early 1970s release by Tammy Wynette, Aretha Franklin, Bobbie Gentry, Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn – the old school of confessional singers who very much wanted the purchaser to know that they were buying a little piece of them.
is partially a homage to this period, Giddens has been awarded a MacArthur “Genius” grant, won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on an opera about the enslaved West African theologian Omar Ibn Said, a Grammy for one of her albums with her partner, the Italian composer Francesco Turrisi, and worked on musical projects including, but not limited to, Our Native Daughters – the latter a banjo supergroup with Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla and Amythyst Kiah, whose sole LP to date was a highlight of 2019. In between all of which and more, she starred in two seasons of high-gloss country soap and wrote a series of children’s books.
