Over the weekend of May 15 to 17, The Current hosted Sounds Like Home: a virtual festival of Minnesota music. You can find all the performances archived on The Current's Facebook page, and they'll also be archived one by one right here on our website. Thanks to the Minnesota Legacy Amendment Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund for allowing The Current to compensate artists for their performances.

Reina del Cid is the moniker of Rachelle Cordova, who was always drawn to music throughout her childhood. When she was 15 years old, she was a budding lyricist, and she received her first guitar as a gift from her father.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2010 with a degree in English Literature, Cordova started making music more formally as Reina del Cid. Her stage name originates from Spanish literature; her nickname for her guitar is "El Cid", named after the Castilian nobleman of the same name, and so "Reina del Cid" means "Queen of Her Guitar." She formed a folk-rock band of the same name with Toni Lindgren (guitar, vocals), Zach Schmidt (drums), and Andrew Foreman (bass), and released their first album, blueprints, plans, in 2012.

Reina del Cid quickly gained a lot of attention as people were drawn to their clever lyrics and catchy riffs. In 2013, they began playing a weekly residency at the Amsterdam Bar & Hall in St. Paul, Minn., which lasted for two years. They then began to tour nationally in support of their second record, The Cooling. Since then, Reina del Cid's sound has been evolving, and their lineup has changed a bit, with Nate Babbs replacing Schmidt on drums. In 2019, they most recently released a new record, Morse Code, after having their music featured on the likes of Paste Magazine, Baeble Music, and NPR.

Reina del Cid and Toni Lindgren perform together on two of the three songs in this set for the Sounds Like Home Festival.

Songs Performed

03:47 "Won't You Please Forget"
07:00 "Million Girls"
11:26 "Bernadette"

Hosted by Mary Lucia
Produced by Jesse Wiza
Engineered by Erik Stromstad and Nate Ryan
Article by Sylvia Jennings

External Link

Reina del Cid - official site

Gallery

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