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Kristina R. Gaddy, Rhiannon Giddens: Well of Souls (Hardcover, 2022, W. W. Norton & Company) 3 stars

juxtaposes conditions of slavery to music and dance's jubilee

3 stars

A curious history through dramatizing a series of primary sources in paintings, dioramas, and travelogues depicting the banjo at a uniquely African-Caribbean intersection of slavery, music, worship and celebration, and adaptation. As some of the threads are light echoes, I wish there was a bit more sense of engaging with other supporting or supplanted accounts of the instrument's background.