Rhiannon Giddens

Giddens’ journey, in a larger sense, began in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, where she was raised—an area with a rich legacy of old-time music, black and white, that Giddens would explore in depth after college. Much like the classically trained Odetta, she originally envisioned a career in opera and earned a degree in vocal performance at Oberlin Conservatory. A side interest in contra-dance calling led her towards old-time music. That became her overarching passion when she returned to the Greensboro area. She met her soon-to-be band members at 2005’s Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, and got schooled in the Piedmont’s traditional music by Joe Thompson, an elderly African-American fiddle player who passed on to Giddens and her cohorts many of the songs that would comprise their early repertoire.