ABOUT THIS RELEASE
North Carolina–based Carolina Chocolate Drops follow up their critically lauded label debut—2010′s Grammy Award–winning Genuine Negro Jig, which reached #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers and Folk Charts—with Leaving Eden, due February 28 on Nonesuch Records, with vinyl to follow on March 20. The group returns with a record of original compositions, covers, and traditional songs produced by Buddy Miller (Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Patty Griffin, Solomon Burke). The album is available for pre-order now; a download of the track “Country Girl,” which NPR named a Song of the Day, is included.
With Leaving Eden the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ founding members Dom Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens expand their lineup to include multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins; during their live sets the members share singing duties and swap instruments regularly. (Cellist Leyla McCalla also joins the band on the record.)
The Drops have toured year-round internationally since the band’s inception, playing festivals such as Bonnaroo, SXSW, and Telluride and selling out concert halls and clubs. The band regularly receives critical accolades from publications such as the Seattle Times, which said “What a treat to bask in this Grammy-winning group’s top-notch musicality, easy good humor and understated but sparkling showmanship with just the right dollop of historical background.” And the Capital Times (Madison, WI) said, “The string band performed a joyful, high-energy show that had the packed, sweaty theater moving and cheering for the entire time. The band’s sound is rooted in, and very reverent to, the traditional African-American string band sound of generations ago. But the attitude is anything but old-timey, as the band brought in hip-hop and soul elements, a no-holds-barred energy, and just a sense of playfulness to the songs.”
ABOUT THIS RELEASE
Nonesuch releases its second record from North Carolina-based string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops—a four-song EP—on January 25. The record is a collaboration with the New York City–based Romanian gypsy punk band Luminescent Orchestrii; it was co-produced by that group’s sound engineer, Joseph “Bass” DeJarnette, with the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Luminescent Orchestrii. The project began when both the Luminescent Orchestrii and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, longtime admirers of each others’ music, were performing at the Folk Alliance festival in Memphis, Tennessee. The Chocolate Drops were soon invited to Brooklyn to join the Luminescent Orchestrii and their friend human beatboxer Adam Matta to record “Knockin’,” from the Lumiis’ record Too Hot to Sleep, and Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ’Em Up Style,” which was on the Drops’ album Genuine Negro Jig. Next the Lumiis and Matta went down to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to record a new version of the Sam Morgan jazz classic “Short Dress Gal” and the Lumii song “Escoutas (Diga Diga Diga).” These four songs comprise Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestrii.
ABOUT THIS RELEASE
Nonesuch Records releases the label debut of North Carolina–based string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops on February 23, 2010. Produced by critically acclaimed recording artist and songwriter Joe Henry (Allen Toussaint, Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke), Genuine Negro Jig features string band interpretations of Blu Cantrell’s beat-box driven R&B single “Hit ‘Em Up Style” and Tom Waits’ “Trampled Rose,” as well as a pair of original compositions, alongside such traditional tracks as “Cornbread and Butterbeans” and “Trouble in Your Mind.” It is the band’s second record; their 2007 release, Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind, was praised by Paste for “bravely and expertly reclaiming the string band tradition for modern African-American culture,” while NPR’s Weekend Edition calls the band “the hottest thing to hit the old-time music community in decades.” Genuine Negro Jig won Best Traditional Folk Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards.
ABOUT THIS RELEASE
On this album, the songs touch on ancient blues and country, but to align what the CCD do with either of those branches would be an error. Songs like “Ol’ Corn Likker” and “Black-Eyed Daisy” evoke a time and place far removed not only from the present but from contemporary notions of what those genres signify. When the trio plays “Dixie,” you’re listening not to a patriotic rebel anthem but a yearning, mournful moan. And the purity of Giddens’ solo a cappella vocal on “Little Margaret” belongs to an era when music was not something to be sold but something from the soul.
