You’re Not Alone

Songs of our Native Daughters (Smithsonian Folkways, 2019)


Allison Russell, vocals and 5-string banjo;
Rhiannon Giddens, backing vocals and minstrel banjo;
Leyla McCalla, cello;
Jamie Dick, drums and percussion;
Dirk Powell, accordion, piano, keys, electric guitar, and bass

Russell è, invece, la prima voce nella ballata “You’re Not Alone”, dichiarazione della forza della consapevolezza comune, un omaggio alla resilienza delle antenate da parte delle quattro Native Daughters, che chiude questo capo d’opera.  
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I became a mother to my daughter Ida Maeve almost five years ago. She’s been on the road with her dad and me since she was four weeks old. Nobody warned us about the unending fear and worry that attached to the deepest, truest love known to human- kind—and yet never had I felt more pow- erful and more connected to the ancestors than I did in giving birth to my girl. Coming to the bayou to work on this inspiring proj- ect with Rhiannon, Amythyst, and Leyla also marked my longest separation from my child, 12 days. I would be lying if I said that it was easy for me. As we got deeper into the project, into the source material, slave narratives, and minstrel history, I kept feeling the parallels to my own life and experience. I survived 10 years of sexual, physical, psychological abuse and dehu- manizing treatment as a child at the hands of my white American adopted father. I came close to suicide, but something kept me here. A whisper of hope. A hidden light. I felt the presence of my grandmothers,

great-grandmothers, and back—and I began to understand that the other side of the coin to the horror, inhumanity, abuse, pain, and fear of slavery is resilience, endurance, survival, hope, and strength. That strength and resilience, Quasheba’s strength and resilience distilled through so many gener- ations of unimaginable suffering, sustains and protects me, sustain and protect my daughter. The strength and resilience of all our ancestors sustain us. In this time when schools need to practice active shooter drills and places of worship become targets and houses of death, we are not alone. Our ancestors survived worse. For their sake and our children’s sake, we can do better. We can be better. We are one family, blood and bones, one race—human—and so many beautiful colors. We have love. We can
take better care of each other. Music helps. Music heals. — AR
Dal libretto dell'album