Starting at the 3:11 mark, Rhiannon Giddens plays the song "Underneath The Harlem Moon" live in concert before a sold-out audience at SF Jazz in San Francisco, California on February 13, 2020. Underneath The Harlem Moon was written by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel and recorded many different times, including by Don Redman, Fletcher Henderson, and Randy Newman, though it's the "reclaimed" version by Ethel Waters from 1933 that Giddens notes in her introduction. Giddens released her own cover version of the song on her Factory Girl EP (2015). Joining her onstage were Francesco Turrisi (piano) and Jason Sypher (bass).
Giddens wrote this in the Factory Girl EP liner notes: "This song was written in 1932 as a pretty straight-up 'darky' song, replete with racist imagery and stereotypes. Just a year later, Ethel Waters tweaked existing lines (changing 'the Harlem moon' to 'our Harlem moon' and 'darkies' to 'schwartzes,' among others), and wrote new verses wholesale and absolutely reclaimed it. She is a hero of the Jazz Age who has not gotten her just due."
In introducing the song at SFJazz, she said: "One of the only ways you could enter the entertainment industry was through blackface. Isn't that crazy? Black people putting on blackface. So it was black people pretending to be white people pretending to be black people. And as the century wore on, people started to notice. I mean, people like critics and stuff are going, 'Wait what, what? Wait a minute. Something's not quite right here.' And African Americans figured out ways to subvert minstrelsy as best they could, but it's kind of like you had to deal with the tools that you had. Now, towards the turn of the century, it starts to become a little bit more unfashionable and it goes either underground, and it pops up in things like our cartoons. You know, Mickey Mouse isn't just wearing white gloves 'cuz...you know, that's a whole 'nother lecture. It shows up in our cartoons, it shows up in our movies, it's still around today, that kind of thing. It's a part of our culture, but in terms of it being a spectacle on stage it becomes old fashioned. Vaudeville takes over, and then we move on to the 'coon song.' These songs were all about how all black people like to do is to eat watermelon, and sing and dance all day long. Oh, and fried chicken too. And they were terrible. They're terrible songs, but they were really popular. The most popular one was called 'All Coons Look Alike To Me.' Written by a black man. 'Cause he got his cash. He regretted it later. These were catchy. But the thing is, these songs didn't exist in a vacuum. They were coming out of the culture of the time. So you can whistle that song at somebody, and start a fight. People knew what that stuff meant. They weren't just harmless songs is what i'm getting at. So anyway, there was one of these called "Underneath The Harlem Moon," written by a couple of Tin Pan Alley cats. And there was a woman named Ethel Waters. And there's a recording of hers, in a little movie short, singing this song. And I was listening to it, I was going, 'Wait a minute. She has added some stuff. And she changed some things.' So we're going to do Ethel's version of this song."
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Official Show Description
Singer, violinist, banjo player, actress, Grammy-winner, and founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens returns with music from her new Nonesuch album, There Is No Other. The Greensboro, North Carolina native has assimilated a rich diversity of music traditions, from the country songs of her youth and the world of opera she was immersed in at Ohio’s Oberlin Conservatory to Celtic music and the gamut of African American song styles with roots in the Piedmont and the whole of the rural South. Born out of the success of the trio Sankofa Strings, Carolina Chocolate Drops have rightfully become a global phenomenon, and Giddens remains the group’s sole original member and driving force.
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Rhiannon Giddens - Live Tour Dates (2019-2020)
Dec. 1 - Edinburgh, UK @ Usher Hall
Dec. 3 - Utrecht, Netherlands @ TivoliVredenburg
Dec. 4 - Hamburg, Germany @ Fabrik
Dec. 5 - Darmstadt, Germany @ Centralstation
Dec. 7 - Cologne, Germany @ Kulturkirche
Dec. 8 - Leuven, Belgium @ Het Depot
Dec. 9 - Paris, France @ Café de la Danse
Dec. 10 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ De Duif
Jan. 17-18 - Turin, Italy @ Torino Folk Club
Feb. 7 - Stanford, CA @ Bing Concert Hall
Feb. 13-16 - San Francisco, CA @ SFJAZZ Center
Mar. 4 - Wellington, New Zealand @ New Zealand Festival
Mar. 7 - Adelaide, Australia @ WOMADelaide Festival
Mar. 8 - Port Fairy, Australia @ Port Fairy Folk Festival
Mar. 11 - Hobart, Australia @ Museum of Old and New Art
Mar. 14 - Melbourne, Australia @ Melbourne Recital Centre
Mar. 15 - Katoomba, Australia @ Blue Mountains Music Festival
Mar. 17 - Sydney, Australia @ Metro Theatre