Celtic Connections
Rhiannon Giddens
Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
Keith Bruce
four stars
IT speaks - or rather field hollers, passionately - volumes for a remarkable artist, that it is a powerful reading of Odetta's Water Boy that has become the calling card of Rhiannon Giddens. Firstly with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and now as a solo performer, albeit in the company of fine quintet, led by Hubby Jenkins, Giddens is an expert musical archaeologist with a distinctly feminist inclination, and as keen to promote Dolly Parton's credentials in that department as those of Ethel Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, "the originator of rock'n'roll guitar."
But if her erudition and politics are unimpeachable, it is her delivery and remarkable voice (as well as expert facility on banjo and fiddle) that make her one sassy blue stocking. As we have been saying in The Herald for a year now and a packed house clearly appreciated on Wednesday night, Giddens is well on the road to being a major global star of roots music.
A note to the production department at Celtic Connections, however. This performance of Water Boy was not in any way enhanced by the far-from-synchronised lighting with which it was unnecessarily punctuated, and the singer herself later felt the need to mention the excessive stage smoke that went with the presentation in what is already an atmospheric venue. Less of that please.
Jarlath Henderson may be thankful that he was dealt the support-slot's hand in that department, but his move to centre-stage vocals (with less of his expert facility on whistle and pipes) will surely see him headlining festivals far and wide. With a quartet of Hamish Napier, Innes Watson, Duncan Lyall and Andrea Gobbi playing exquisite arrangements, this is 21st century folk-rock, showing fine taste in retro sounds.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here