COMING TO CHARLOTTE ON SATURDAY

Sweet sounds of banjo, fiddle, jug

Carolina Chocolate Drops trio educates as well as entertains

DAN HUNTLEY
dhuntley@charlotteobserver.com

The Carolina Chocolate Drops, an African American trio that plays the banjo, fiddle and jug, is coming to Charlotte to spread the gospel of
old-time string band music.

Fresh from a monthlong European tour, the Durham-based band will perform Saturday at the Northwest School of the Arts with a free workshop for young musicians and an all-you-can-eat fish fry at the nearby Historic Excelsior Club.

The Charlotte Folk Society is sponsoring the Drops' performance, and the group wants to make it known that "this concert is about much more than music."

"We're hoping the show will draw a diverse crowd of people interested in not only great live music, but a better understanding of the African American origins of this music," said folk society board member Wanda Hubicki. The Drops "are musical ambassadors who are willing to come here to perform, to teach our young people and to share a meal with our community."

The Drops formed just two years ago but have already performed at the Newport Folk Festival, the National Folk Festival and on "A Prairie Home Companion" -- nearly 200 performances in 2007. They're preparing for their second performance at MerleFest in Wilkesboro in April and their debut at Spoleto in Charleston in June. They also have four songs on the soundtrack of the Denzel Washington-Forest Whitaker movie "The Great Debaters."

"You don't ordinarily see black people playing banjos and fiddles, but we somehow thought it would work from the time we first got together," said Dom Flemons, during a stopover in New York last week after playing in Belgium. "Yes, most of our audiences are white but slowly, we're getting the word out to others. ... I love working with young black kids and seeing their eyes get big when we explain how the banjo came from Africa. There was a time in this country when most all of the banjo players were black."

Flemons, 25, is from Arizona. He first met the other musicians -- Rhiannon Giddens, 31, who grew up in Greensboro; and Justin Robinson, 25, who grew up in Gastonia -- at the "Black Banjo Then and Now Gathering" in April 2005 at Appalachian State University in Boone.

"It was an amazing conference, we just got together and starting playing," Flemons said.

The musicians all play several instruments, but primarily, Flemons plays percussion/guitar, Giddens plays banjo and Robinson plays fiddle.

On stage, Giddens sometimes performs barefoot and in pigtail hair; Robinson often plays in overalls. Giddens graduated from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a degree in voice. Robinson has studied classical violin, and his mother is a cellist and Opera Carolina vocalist.

The Drops' music is not up-tempo bluegrass; it's primarily foot-stomping fiddle tunes such as "Black-eyed Daisy" and "Georgie Buck."

"The banjo came from Africa, and the fiddle from Europe and that's a big part of the origins of music in this part of the country," said Tom Hanchett, historian at the Levine Museum of the New South. "What the Chocolate Drops do is treat this old string band music with respect and passion. And they communicate the history of this music that shaped the South."

CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS

Old-time string band music, sponsored by the Levine Museum of the New South, the Historic Excelsior Club, the African Diaspora Arts Program and Theater and the Afro-American Cultural Center.

WHEN: Fish fry, 5:30-7:30 p.m.; concert, 7:30 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Fish fry at Historic Excelsior Club, 921 Beatties Ford Road. Concert at Northwest School of the Arts, 1415 Beatties Ford Road.

TICKETS: Fish fry: $5 adults, $3 children. Concert: $12, $10 seniors, $6 students at the door or at www.folksociety.org.

DETAILS: Wanda Hubicki at 704-563-7080.