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It’s strong medicine, too, on an album that takes a less-compromising tilt at tradition than its predecessor. Reports and reviews will tell you about the prickly instrumentation: blowing jug and sawing fiddles, the mouth music of the beatboxer, the gut-string banjo and clacking cow bones of 19th century minstrelsy (“Saturday night femur,” ran one headline). But they don’t convey the tough, unnerving gusto of the music, and Buddy Miller’s production doesn’t smooth off any of the rough edges. The recording crackles with gasps and natural echo, and the virtuosity and imprecision of an ensemble playing full-tilt together. And it’s plain terrific.
Dispelling the myth that black music began with the blues, the Chocolate Drops have reclaimed a swathe of the musical styles that enlivened the South a hundred years ago. Their musical archaeology has taken them to documents like the 1870 songbook that provided the gourd-banjo instrumental Kerr’s Negro Jig, and to old-timers like Joe Thompson. In its early days, too, the group was fostered by Tim Duffy of the wonderful Music Maker Relief Foundation – a unique North Carolina institution that tracks down and supports forgotten musicians – and West End Blues is a mulish banjo tune from Music Maker’s Etta Baker (born 1913).
There’s artful variety; the band may have a particular approach, but they’re no purists. Ragtime, jug band novelties, calypso and even folk-rock jostle among the hoedowns and jigs. And Rhiannon Giddens’ compelling, often strident voice has never been more soulful than on the touching title-track.
--Ninian Dunnett
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
The Drops were always at their best on-stage, however, where the gospel stomp of those mountain rhythms and the kinetic energy the band gave off completed the feel of a living, breathing history lesson.
Those old string bands could turn on a dime, and the Chocolate Drops reproduced that art, turning their live sets into a black string band revival show. The studio albums felt like they were a bit encased in glass compared to the live performances.
For this outing, however, the Chocolate Drops found the perfect producer in Buddy Miller, who recorded the band live in a single room, and the result is a wonderfully immediate album that feels like a Saturday night house party-- complete with moonlight, dust flying from the carpet under the feet of dancers, and crickets and night bird calls out the open windows.
The sound breathes, and the Drops shine.
Traditional pieces like "Po' Black Sheep" become stomping revivals, born again in a new century. "Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?" becomes a clawhammer banjo-driven mountain blues, with Rhiannon Giddens' vocal making it seem like Janis Joplin just wandered into the party, a feat she repeats with the album's marvelous last track, "Pretty Bird" (complete with crickets in the background).
The Carolina Chocolate Drops may be intent on reproducing a sound from over a century ago, but they do an amazing job of translating it into the 21st century without diminishing it.
This set feels like a Saturday night throw down under the summer stars. It almost seems timeless, perhaps because it defies time. S. Leggett
My advice is to read Mr Moon's review for a more detailed idea of the album and then to snap it up. It's an absolute gem.
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