On April 14, Rhiannon Giddens sang for President Barack Obama. She shook hands with Obama. She managed to respond coherently when Obama told her he’d listened to her record.

“Everything was fine,” Giddens recalls of her performance at the White House, until she met Aretha Franklin and “completely fell to pieces” in the presence of the Queen of Soul.

“I can make it through meeting the president of the United States, but I sound like an idiot talking to Aretha Franklin — sounds about right,” jokes the folk musician, who will play to a decidedly less intimidating crowd Wednesday evening at Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts St.

Rhiannon Giddens

So far, 2015 has been a big year for Giddens, who first gained recognition as the lead singer, violinist and banjo player for the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Grammy-winning Americana string band she co-founded in 2005.

In February, the 38-year-old released her first solo album, the T Bone Burnett-produced “Tomorrow is My Turn,” to critical acclaim.

The 11-track offering is a catalogue of powerhouse female musicians, from the widely known (Dolly Parton, Nina Simone, Patsy Cline) to artists who “didn’t quite get their fair shake,” Giddens says.

“The whole point of my record is, I’m here because of all these women who came before me and paved the way for me and have been such an inspiration to me,” she says.

Immortalized by Simone in 1965, the title track speaks of a bright future that for some artists covered in “Tomorrow is My Turn,” never came.

That’s certainly the case for Geeshie Wiley, whom Giddens pays homage to in “Last Kind Words,” the album’s opening song.

The blues singer and guitarist recorded three albums in the early 1930s and then seemingly faded from memory. There aren’t any known pictures of her in existence, and details from her birth date to her death to her legal name remain disputed.

But she’s a heroine to Giddens, whose album contains just one original song. It’s called “Angel City,” and it’s the closing song on “Tomorrow is My Turn.”

“None of us stand alone, is the idea,” she says of the track. “It seemed like the right thing to do — to start off the record with an anonymous composition from a woman we don’t know anything about, to ending with a very specific ‘thank you’ from me.”

These days, Giddens says, she’s able to say “thank you” to her favorite musicians a lot more often — and in person.

Meeting Aretha Franklin and Darlene Love, who also performed at the same White House function alongside other greats like Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett, made the gig “one of those highlights-of-my-life experiences,” she says.

Still, Giddens says, “fame really doesn’t mean much to me.” It’s the music that keeps her going.

Out of all the musicians celebrated in “Tomorrow is My Turn,” Dolly Parton is the only one still alive, by Giddens’ count.

She hasn’t heard any feedback from the country superstar on her cover of “Don’t Let it Trouble Your Mind,” and she doesn’t expect to.

“She’s in a far different universe than I am,” Giddens says. “Still, I definitely wouldn’t be unhappy if I ever heard from her someday. That would be super cool.”

Maybe her buddy T Bone Burnett can pull some strings. A Rhiannon Giddens/Dolly Parton collaboration? Cool, indeed.