Rhiannon Giddens was a revelation. Five years ago, she was here as a member of the African American old-time string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, but now she returned as a soloist, showing a range and vocal power that she had only hinted at before. Switching from folk and country to gospel, she transformed songs made famous by Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline or Odetta with her gutsy approach and banjo playing, backed by an exuberant five-piece band. By the end, she was switching from a self-composed lament on slavery and the civil war to an unexpected and furious burst of Scottish mouth music. As Joan Baez commented on her later, “Jesus! Just beautiful!”
This was an entertaining but curious festival, with an unusually large contingent of American performers and British artists from the pop festival circuit, but also featured a stirring performance from the Italian pizzica band Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, with their hypnotically powerful dance style said to cure tarantula bite. The US celebrities included Baez, who provided a classy, sing-along set of well-known numbers, from Freight Train to Imagine. She explained how she had been influenced by Peggy Seeger, so it was disappointing that they didn’t perform together, as Seeger was on sparkling form. Seeger has turned 80, and played solo, backing herself on guitar and keyboards, and, when she wasn’t being angry or bravely honest, was unexpectedly funny.
From the newer American artists, the best lyrics came from Angaleena Presley, a coal miner’s daughter from Kentucky, who may not have the voice of her heroine Loretta Lynn, but whose opening song, American Middle Class, showed that she’s a feisty social commentator. It was a good festival, too, for US guitarist Chris Smither, who has spent five decades perfecting his dazzling fingerpicking style and well-worn vocals.
The most exhilarating British performer was decidedly non-folky. Now remarkably and thankfully recovered after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Wilko Johnson celebrated with a furious demonstration of his unique jagged rhythm guitar riffs on stomping Dr Feelgood favourites such as Back in the Night. Frank Turner, who followed him, sounded tediously strident and included a bombastic unaccompanied treatment of the traditional Barbara Allen.
Olivia Chaney showed how it should be sung, at the start of an adventurous set in which she switched from Purcell to Violeta Parra and her own highly personal and acrobatic compositions, while playing harmonium, guitar and keyboards. Once her stagecraft is as assured as her singing, she will be a major addition to the English folk scene.
Sunday’s lineup followed the same pattern. Once again, it was American bands that dominated, and the finest performance of the night came from one of the most inventive acoustic bands on the planet. Led by mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, Punch Brothers are a neatly dressed five-piece who play fiddle, banjo, guitar and double bass. Their roots may be in bluegrass, but they used their country influences as a starting point for songs that were intricate and constantly surprising. The stomping, banjo-backed Rye Whiskey was followed by an instrumental by “Claude Debussy, the great bluegrass composer”, and though Passepied was originally written for piano, it was now treated to an elegant country make-over, with impressive fiddle and mandolin solos. Later, the band put down their instruments for a powerful five-part harmony treatment of Dominic Behan’s Dublin prison song The Auld Triangle. And they finished with inventive pop balladry, with Thile backed by rippling banjo on the edgy Magnet. Their last album may have sounded just a little too clever, but playing live they were magnificent.
A very different side of Americana was demonstrated by Ben Miller Band, a dangerously wild-looking bearded trio from Missouri who are the perfect southern bar-room band. They played slide guitar, washboard, trombone, one-string washtub bass, and a series of other DIY instruments including a ukelele built from a Cuban cigar box, and reworked traditional songs from The Cuckoo to the Lead Belly-favourite Black Betty with a furious energy that they have found hard to recapture on record.
From the British folk scene, the main event on the festival’s final day was an appearance by the new super-group consisting of Martin Simpson, Andy Cutting, Nancy Kerr. They played guitar, squeezebox and fiddle, with Martin and Nancy handling the vocals on a classy, elegant selection that ranged from traditional American and English songs to Lal Waterson’s Some Old Salty.
