Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson and Dom Flemons (pictured) are my kind of Negroes... “doing culture” at a high level. And they’re in demand, with gigs booked into next April.Heads up, Brooklyn! The Chocolate Drops will play a free show Thursday night in Prospect Park. (Organizers of the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series request that you donate $3.)
Next month the Carolina Chocolate Drops will travel to France for a world-music festival. And in August they return to the Ottawa Folk Festival... after rocking it a year ago.
Now guess what else? The Chocolate Drops last weekend made their debut at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House – the tabernacle of country music – and they got a standing ovation!
Below, the group performs “Cornbread and Butterbeans” during an April showcase in Knoxville, Tenn. Enjoy!
I still love their name. Question: Will they be at the BET Awards? .... Ever?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up, UBM! :thumbsup:
ReplyDeleteYou know always seem to know what's goin' down with new music acts in Brooklyn. (I bleed Brooklyn; yet, I'm not on top of all this!)
Haven't been to Prospect Park in a long while. It'd be nice to change that on Thursday. :-)
btw, the annual MLK Jr. Concert Series in Bklyn usually has great musical acts on its bill.
My favorite tune by them, actually. Good call. I lost the CD they gave me what "Cornbread and Butterbeans" on it and been pissed ever since. My kids love that tune.
ReplyDeleteGood call Eeaster. My kids like this one also...but their fave is still Salty Dog....
ReplyDeleteand Rhiannon Giddens is my UnRandom Hotness. Brains, Talent, Beauty, Personality, and that lil extra...
As for the BET awards....I see them presenting the Bob Johnson Lifetime Humanitarian Award to Mugabe....just not sure which of the other 2 universes it will be in.
and Rhiannon Giddens is my UnRandom Hotness. Brains, Talent, Beauty, Personality, and that lil extra...
ReplyDeleteThat lil extra being: she plays barefoot!
Yep, Des... Rhiannon is bad. Maximum badness. Imagine the drama between the two cats! You know they got to fall in love with her.
kewel!
ReplyDeletei had occasion to plug into the old time music scene in blacksburg VA a couple of years ago, and there's good musical scholarship, very interesting, about the contributions of black people, free and slave, to OT -- since in the 18th century all the fiddlers, at least, were black. and then there are the permutations of black religious music morphing into "country/folk songs" -- she'll be comin' round the mountain, and many others. i think there was prolly a whole lot more hoedowin' up there in the hollers than anybody wants now to acknowledge.
http://www.blackbanjo.com/
ReplyDeleteThat's funny about Rhiannon. She just got married too - dammit! To some Irish cat.
ReplyDeleteThe whole time they were in my office doing the interview I'm thinking "Which one of these brothers has fallen head over heels yet?" She's just riculously talented and smart, and the fine part is just the icing on the cake to drive a brotha crazy.
Love that link, purejuice!
ReplyDeleteFrom a 21st-century perch, we can't imagine two more profoundly separate populations than blacks and whites in the Old South. But the music gives us a handle understanding that they lived together culturally.
The influence had to have gone the other way too... with Scots-Irish folk music influencing black music.
The whole time they were in my office doing the interview I'm thinking "Which one of these brothers has fallen head over heels yet?"
ReplyDeleteLOL!
Eeaster,
ReplyDelete"in your office?" I'd turn green with envy....cept I wouldn't want the Irish dude to think I was sending him a seal of approval.
dam dam dam.
The other icing is that she comes off so unpretentiously and down to earth...but then a lot of "roots" and blues musicians share that trait.
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ReplyDeleteHey- the Carolina Chocolate Drops are playing in Columbia, MO for the 4th of July this year. If you live in the region, you should check out their show! You can get tix at www.thebluenote.com
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