“We’re going to be taking you on a little tour of American roots music,” announced Rhiannon Giddens at the outset of her headlining turn in the Tito’s tent on Friday near dusk. What followed was as much a master musicology seminar as festival set.
The sextet, which included Giddens’ fellow Carolina Chocolate Drops Hubby Jenkins, Rowan Corbett, and cellist Malcolm Parson, threaded the strands of musical traditions into an overall tapestry that transcended genre and era. Opening with Bob Dylan’s revived “Spanish Mary” from last year’s New Basement Tapes project, and crossing country with Dolly Parton’s “Don’t Let It Trouble Your Mind” and Patsy Cline hit “She’s Got You,” Giddens’ powerfully ranging vocals stunned throughout.
As on this year’s T Bone Burnett-produced LP, Tomorrow Is My Turn, Giddens’ Odetta-channeling take on traditional “Waterboy” provided the showstopper. Jenkins took lead on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Can’t Nobody Hide From God,” and “Ruby” highlighted Giddens’ clawhammer banjo and high-lonesome yelp. Giddens original “Come Love Come” twisted a traditional-sounding spiritual atop an almost jazz bass line before the singer worked through a furious Celtic scat, and followed it up by revisiting the New Basement Tapes with “Duncan and Jimmy.”
Before closing out with Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “The Lonesome Road,” the band peeled through a CCD mashup favorite, “Snowden’s Jig” with Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style.” If one critique could be leveraged against Giddens’ exceptional talent, it’s that her vocals are almost too extraordinary and refined for the rawness of her roots catalog. Nevertheless, she’s emerged as one of the most essential contemporary emissaries of American music.
This article appears in October 2 • 2015.
