You’re the One

With You’re the One, Giddens is clearly hoping to broaden her appeal beyond the folk/roots/Americana stockade and her fan club among SL readers. But she hasn’t compromised her artistry to reach the mainstream, she's merely broadened her approach with the support of producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys) who has helped her to sound funkier than ever before. This is especially true on the horn-driven opener ‘Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad’ on which her voice vaults from a guttural growl to a soulful soprano. Moving effortlessly from funk to folk, she gets out her banjo on the title track before the bluegrass of the Dolly Parton-esque ‘If You Don’t Know How Sweet It Is’ gives way to the Bessie Smith-referencing blues of ‘You Put the Sugar in My Bowl’. There's a vivacious playfulness to such songs, but her social conscience is heard to potent effect on ‘Another Wasted Life’, inspired by the tragic story of #BlackLivesMatter cause célèbre Kalief Browder, who spent two years in solitary confinement for a robbery he didn’t commit and then committed suicide. Elsewhere there are rocking Cajun flavours ( ‘You Louisiana Man’) and swooning jazz ballads ( ‘Who Are You Dreaming Of’), while gospel fervour meets old-time string band music on ‘Way Over Yonder’. Wonderful stuff.