Good Morning POU!
The Carolina Chocolate Drops is an old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina. Their 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, and was number 9 in FRoots magazine’s top 10 albums of 2010.
Formed in November 2005, following the members’ attendance at the first Black Banjo Gathering held in Boone, North Carolina in April 2005, the group grew out of the success of Sankofa Strings, an ensemble that featured Don Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and and percussionist/banjoist Sule Greg Wilson, with Justin Robinson as an occasional guest artist.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops originally had three members: Giddens, Flemons, and Robinson, who were all in their twenties when the group formed. Wilson, nearly a generation older than the Drops, continued to occasionally perform with the group into 2010, including contributions to Dona Got a Rambin’ Mind, CCD with Joe Thompson, Heritage (with songs culled from Sankofa Strings’ CD, Colored Aristocracy) and nearly half of Genuine Negro Jig. All of the musicians sing and trade instruments including bango, fiddle, guitar, harmonica, snare drum, bones, jug and kazoo. The group learned much of their repertoire, which is based on the traditional music of the Piedmont region of North and South Carolina, from the eminent African American old-time fiddler Joe Thompson, although they also perform old-time versions of some modern songs such as Blu Cantrell’s R&B hit “Hit em Up Style (Oops!).”
The Carolina Chocolate Drops have released five CDs and one EP and have opened for Taj Mahal and, in 2011, Bob Dylan. They have performed on Mountain Stage, MerleFest, and at the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention. Additionally they have performed at the 2010 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, and at the 2011 Romp, in Owensboro, Kentucky. On Tuesday 17 January 2012 they appeared live on BBC Radio 3. They have performed on the Grand Ole Opry several times. They have also performed on the world renowned “Later with Jools Holland”.
In 2012, the Drops were nominated for numerous awards by the Chicago Black Theater Alliance for their work in Keep a Song in Your Soul: The Roots of Black Vaudeville. Staged by the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, written by Lalenja Harrington (Rhiannon Giddens’ sister) and Sule Greg Wilson, and featuring veteran hoofer Reggio MacLaughlin, and ragtime pianist and MacArthur Fellow Reginald R. Robinson, the program examined the hopes and realities, music and dances of the Great Migration.