Rhiannon Giddens review – contagious delight and furious defiance

‘History is my biggest teacher,” says Rhiannon Giddens, introducing At the Purchaser’s Option, written after her research into slavery uncovered a chilling advert from the 1830s. It announced the sale of a “smart healthy Negro Wench”, and added, “she has a child about nine months old, which will be at the purchaser’s option”. Giddens transformed this bleak discovery into a furious cry of defiance, the most pained and powerful song of a triumphant and varied set.

After several years playing pre-war African-American string band music with the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens has expanded her range with dramatic results. Two years ago, her first solo album reworked songs by great women singers from Bessie Smith to Patsy Cline; this year’s Freedom Highway is dominated by her own material and its stories of the civil rights struggle.

All of which may make Giddens sound a solemn, almost academic figure, but her history lessons were matched with a contagious sense of delight and enjoyment of the songs. She bounded on, barefoot, and opened with a stomping treatment of Spanish Mary, which she recorded with supergroup the New Basement Tapes, who created new songs from lyrics written by Bob Dylan. Driven on by guitar, double bass and drums, Giddens backed herself on banjo, her Chocolate Drops colleague Hubby Jenkins alternating a second banjo with guitar, mandolin and bones percussion. She switched to fiddle for a duet with another impressive multi-instrumentalist, Dirk Powell, before changing the mood with a forceful keyboard-backed ballad, The Love We Almost Had.

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So it continued. There was an a cappella treatment of the traditional Pretty Saro, a duet with her sister, and even a burst of rap by Justin Harrington on her story of a gangland killing. And there were tributes to American musical heroes, with a cajun waltz by Dewey Balfa, and a brave stab at Aretha Franklin’s Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.

A thrilling treatment of Waterboy, the traditional song popularised by Odetta, allowed Giddens to display the full extent of her vocal power, likewise a rousing treatment of Pops Staples’ civil rights anthem Freedom Highway. Encores were two glorious songs honouring Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the gospel singer whose ferocious guitar style impressed the young Elvis.

African-Canadian singer Kaia Kater, who opened, was also impressive. But then she was taught by the best - her childhood banjo tutor was Giddens herself.

At the Stables, Milton Keynes, 21 November. Box office: 01908 280800. Then touring until 28 November.