The Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, produced by Buddy Miller, released their studio album Leaving Eden (Nonesuch Records), in early 2012. The traditional African-American string band’s album was recorded in Nashville and featured founding members Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons, along with multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins and cellist Leyla McCalla, already a familiar presence at the group’s live shows. With Flemons and McCalla now concentrating on solo work, the group’s 2014 lineup will feature two more virtuosic players alongside Giddens and Jenkins – cellist Malcolm Parson and multi-instrumentalist Rowan Corbett — illustrating the expansive, continually exploratory nature of the Chocolate Drops’ music. This quartet will release a new album in 2015. The Chocolate Drops were founded in 2005 by Justin Robinson (fiddle player) and Giddens (flemons). The trio, which was based in Durham, North Carolina, would travel to Joe Thompson’s home every Thursday night to learn tunes and listen to stories, and most importantly to jam. Joe, an 80-year-old black fiddler who inherited his short bowing style from his family’s musicians, was now in his 80s. He was now passing on those same lessons to a new generation. The three students didn’t have any big plans when they decided to form a band. It was a tribute to Joe and a way to get Joe’s music out into the streets and to public places. The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ 2010 Nonesuch album, Genuine Negro Jig, won a Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy. It proved that their old-time, banjo-based music, which they had so meticulously researched and passionately performed, could be a dynamic, living, and ever-evolving sound. They began with material from the Piedmont region in the Carolinas. Their goal was to reinterpret the work and not just recreate it. This highlighted the important role African-Americans have played in the shaping of popular music throughout the country’s history, more than 100 years ago. The trio was both provocative and revelatory in their approach. The New York Times called their concerts “an end to end display of excellence…” They delve into the styles of early jazz, string-band music, jug band music, and other southern black musics from the 1920s and 1930s, and beam their curiosity outward. They are quick to forget their instructive mission, and they spend their energy on the things that require it: flatfoot dance, jug-playing, shouting.” Rolling Stone Magazine called the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ style “dirt floor-dance electricity.” According to the band, this is what really matters. Banjos and black strings musicians were brought aboard slave ships. But, this music is now everyone’s. Mix it up and follow your heart. “An attractive grab-bag of blues, country, jugband hits, and gospel hollers all given an agreeably downhome production. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are still the most electrifying acoustic act around.” -The Guardian “The Carolina Chocolate Drops are…revisiting, with a joyful vengeance, black string-band and jug-band music of the Twenties and Thirties–the dirt-floor dance electricity of the Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon’s Jug Stompers.” –Rolling Stone –Michael Hill from www.carolinachocolatedrops.com
