We can thank Topol for today’s track premiere – as Anne Harris was inspired as a child to take up the violin after watching ‘Fiddler On The Roof‘. We don’t know if she has herself ever played on a roof (it seems quite likely though), but we do now that on May 23rd she’ll be playing at the Grand Ole Opry backing up Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’. And on the same occasion she’ll be playing her new violin which it is claimed is a very historical instrument – it represents the first time in the USA that a Black woman musician ever commissioned a violin to be made for her by a Black woman luthier. That’s a remarkable thing, and perhaps the most remarkable thing about it is that it is remarkable that Anne Harris asked Amanda Ewing to make her a violin. Not to downplay the history, but isn’t it strange that in 2025 that’s something that can be historical? It reflects on a long history of exclusion – as Anne Harris has explained: “Even as a lifelong fiddle player, and someone who has made music my career for the last 26 years in spaces where I was, without exception, a minority, it never occurred to me that I would ever play a violin made by someone who looked like me… What is so astonishing to me about this isn’t the fact that up until that point I had never seen an African American woman violin luthier, but rather that I had never even questioned why this was. It just was. That’s the way things were.”
Today’s song, ‘I Feel Alright‘, simmers with a barely contained excitement – it’s a burning ember about to burst into flame. The song comes from Anne Harris’ new album ‘I Feel It Once Again‘ which is out tomorrow on Rugged Road Records. It features songs which draw on influences that span folk, spirituals, blues, and gospel, and includes a version of ‘Snowden’s Jig’ which she first heard via the Carolina Chocolate Drops. It was written by Thomas Snowden of Clinton, Ohio and performed regularly by the Snowden family Band, the longest lasting black string band of the 19th century. It was originally (and mistakenly) credited to and popularized by Dan Emmett, the most popular minstrel performer of his day, and called ‘Genuine Negro Jig.‘ Harris says, “The Snowden Family Band holds a very important place in my spirit because two of its members, sisters Sofia and Annie, both played fiddle in the band, and were possibly the only females known to do so at the time. This fact was used on handbills advertising shows because it was such a rarity. I get chills when I play this song knowing that the first hands to play this song looked like my own. Here I’ve respun it as a Surfer Rock meets traditional fiddle tune.”
Over her career Anne Harris has performed, toured, or recorded with artists as varied as Cracker, Guy Davis, Anders Osborne, Living Colour, Amy Helm, Los Lobos, Shemekia Copeland, and Vieux Farka Toure. She has performed at the Philadelphia Folk Fest and Chicago Blues Fest and won Living Blues Magazine’s 2024 Critic’s Choice Award for Best Musician [Other] Violin. She toured with legendary Trance Blues artist Otis Taylor for 9 years, recording on 4 of his critically acclaimed albums, and drew inspiration and resonance from his pioneering Black Banjo Project.
