Rhiannon Giddens Shares “Freight Train” from Forthcoming Album Hope Is the Thing with Feathers

Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur Genius Award winner, and two-time GRAMMY Award-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens today shares “Freight Train,” a spare interpretation of the song made famous by North Carolina music legend Elizabeth Cotten. This latest track from Giddens’ forthcoming album—Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, out September 18 on Nonesuch Records—features only Giddens’ lead vocal and longtime collaborator Dirk Powell on acoustic guitar.

Pre-order Hope Is the Thing with Feathers here: https://rhiannongiddens.lnk.to/hopeisthething

Giddens’ intimate vocals and Powell’s quiet guitar reveal the economy and emotional depth that have allowed “Freight Train” to travel across generations. More than an exercise in revival, the performance is an act of lineage: one North Carolina artist returning to the work of another, honoring Cotten’s singular musical language while carrying its living history forward.

Listen to / watch the video for “Freight Train” here: https://youtu.be/LACnsBUsY4o

“Freight Train” sits at the heart of Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, a live-recorded collection inspired by the beauty of people coming together and drawing strength from one another. Made with few overdubs during sessions at The Cypress House in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the album invites listeners into the center of the room, preserving the sounds of musicians listening, speaking, stomping, and creating together.

The ten-song collection brings together key collaborators from throughout Giddens’ life and career. Giddens—on lead vocals, minstrel banjo, and fiddle—is joined by longtime bassist Jason Sypher; Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi; Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu; Louisiana native Dirk Powell; her first bandmate and fellow North Carolinian Justin Robinson; her nephew Justin Harrington; Amelia Powell; Charly Lowry; and Giddens’ sister, Lalenja Harrington. The album was co-produced by Giddens and Powell, who also engineered and mixed the record.

“Louisiana, the Congo, Italy, the Carolinas—all of these influences and people coming together to make something: that is American music,” says Giddens. “It’s how American music came to be, and that was the original thought of creating a band with the musicians that I’ve been playing with for years, and featured on this album.”

“Freight Train” follows the release of “Carolina Rain,” an original from the album written by Giddens and Powell. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers also includes interpretations of North Carolina musician Ola Belle Reed’s “High on a Mountain,” Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter and storyteller Pura Fé’s “Going Home,” and traditional songs including “Cluck Old Hen” and “Walk with Me,” a duet with Giddens’ sister. The title track was inspired by Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name.

The album arrives during an extraordinary period of creative expansion for Giddens, who recently signed with WME for worldwide representation in music. She also served as a music supervisor and consultant and contributed original music to Ryan Coogler’s Sinners; created new music for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary The American Revolution; and co-authored Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo with Kristina R. Gaddy. She will also make her leading-role film debut in the forthcoming An Ode To Mary Jo, alongside Ed Helms, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, Regina Taylor, and John Sayles.

Additionally, Giddens recently launched the Biscuits & Banjos Foundation, a nonprofit celebrating the African diaspora’s role in shaping American identity and culture through music, literature, food, and community. The Foundation grew out of her sold-out Biscuits & Banjos Festival in Durham, North Carolina, and will support music education, instrument access, and programming that invests in artists, teachers, and tradition-bearers.

“Giddens’ work has become a foundational influence for a generation of younger Black roots musicians” – Rolling Stone

“Few American performers this century are more accomplished and important than Rhiannon Giddens” – Mojo

Track List

1. Angel Fire Rise
2. Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
3. Step Away Blues
4. Wish in Vain
5. Carolina Rain
6. High on a Mountain
7. Freight Train
8. Walk with Me
9. Cluck Old Hen
10. Going Home

Tour Dates

Aug 20 – Lenox, MA – Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood *
Aug 21 – Waterloo, NY – The Vine Theater at del Lago Resort *
Aug 22 – Chautauqua, NY – Chautauqua Institution *
Nov 01 – Minneapolis, MN – Walker Art Center (Mack Lecture Series)
Nov 14 – New York, NY – Carnegie Hall (with Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma)
Nov 25-29 – Hamburg, Germany – Elbphilharmonie

* Performance with Silkroad Ensemble — Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual