The first band I was in out of college was a Celtic band, and I had to learn to sing with a microphone, because I'd never done that before. At Oberlin, I never used a mic for any kind of singing.

I'm really interested in history and when I looked into the settlers who came to my home state, North Carolina, I found that the largest settlement of Hebridean islanders outside of Scotland was right there in North Carolina.

I've been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn't, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.

Rhiannon Giddens Quotes