Reimagining and reinterpreting lyrics from over half a century ago can seem like a daunting challenge. But when the themes resonate with your journey and connects you to others, you insist on exploring them. You're listening with Stephen Philip Harvey, where we sit down and talk to a variety of musicians on today's music scene.
Today we're sitting down with Christie Dashiell. She's a DC-based and Grammy nominated vocalist, band leader ,and educator. Her recent co-led release, We Insist! 2025, sees her pair with Terri Lyne Carrington to revisit and reimagine the 1960 protest album by Max Roach.
It's all… it’s community. You know? I really like that that theme keeps coming up, too, and that's another theme that I think is really important to take away. It’s in community that we're able to get the work done.
You know, the record is called We Insist… and it's really cool because I just saw Toshi Reagon and she spoke about how the, the I’s of the world come together and make the We. And so, you know, it can't be an I insist, it can't be a singular “I”. I fortify myself in my reading, and my writing , and my rest and all these things. But, you know, when we come together in community, the work is all of ours.
One leader, a drummer, one a vocalist. How does the Dashiell’s perspective of the music shift when using voice as her instrument?
You know, vocalists have this kind of special and unique gift to communicate words and lyrics in a more kind of tangible way, where instrumentalists, they communicate words and feelings without the words. But I think that's something very special that singers have. And so it was really important to maintain the lyrical content of this record and project.
Oscar Brown Jr. Wrote some really beautiful, poignant lyrics, and Terry was just really intentional about making sure we kept those lyrics intact. And so, because I was singing lyrics that had already been sung before and delivered so beautifully by the great Abby Lincoln, you know, when you're writing original lyrics, I can connect with them because they're my own. And sometimes when you're singing lyrics of someone else, you feel a little distant from them.
But the themes are so universal and so timely and so appropriate for what we're going through. I connected with them pretty immediately. I know as a listener of music, I can always hear when someone is operating from a space of just honesty, and that's the space I wanted to be in when singing these lyrics.
When co-leading a band, collaborative efforts include different interpretations of the same material. Two versions of “Freedom Day” one arranged by Dashiell and one by Carrington, and other elements led to new perspectives input in the music.
I mean, the phrasing was different for those songs just because rhythmically… when you're singing arrangements, you have to make adjustments rhythmically, you have to make adjustments harmonically, melodically… But mostly the phrasing was different. But I really enjoy having to think about how do I want to sing this? It's bringing out different meanings and kind of like subtext. Each arrangement has a different subtext to me, but you know, it's all about freedom.
This was Off the Record, hosted by me Stephen Philip Harvey, a Delmarva Public Media Production. Thanks for listening to our interview with Christie Dashiell. To hear more Off the Record Interviews or to listen to other original segments like this, visit delmarvapublicmedia.org.
