Carolina Chocolate Drops
Various Artists
Genuine Negro Jig (Nonesuch)
Going Down To Raleigh: Stringband Music in the North
Various Artists
Carolina Piedmont 1976-1998
Classic Appalachian Blues
(PineCone)
from Smithsonian Folkways (Smithsonian Folkways)
Various Artists Gastonia Gallop: Cotton Mill Songs & Hillbilly Blues, Piedmont Textile Workers on Record, Gaston County, North Carolina 1927-1931 (Old Hat)
Reviews In recent months, the Carolina Chocolate Drops have piqued critics’ interest with the release of their Nonesuch Records debut, Genuine Negro Jig. And like the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack before it, it reveals an appetite in the music-critiquing populace for old-time revivalism with a healthy portion of revisionist history. And indeed, the Drops’ big-time, Joe Henry-produced entrance confronts the ups and downs of reaching eagerly – sometimes desperately – for connection with a more contemporary audience than this sound is accustomed to. And mostly, it’s for the better. “Trouble In Your Mind” delights as a dusty fiddle tune even before Dom Flemons expands the music’s geography to include overtone singing borrowed from Tuvan throat singers. And on the album’s sole original, the Justin Robinson-penned “Kissin’ and Cussin’” (which also appeared on his Birds or Monsters LP Ideas of the North last year), a spare, haunting arrangement drives one of Jig’s most memorable moments. But then, Tuvan throat singing and dark-hued folk don’t really have the type of pop appeal that would trip them up in the first place. It’s the trio’s cover of Blu Cantrell’s 2001 hit “Hit ’Em Up Style” that sinks the group, momentarily, to a Hayseed Dixie level of parody. Even as most of Jig leans more heavily into Depression-era novelty songs than the searing, fiddle-led stringband twang that made the Drops’ name in tradmusic circles, it’s mostly an entertaining affair in a Squirrel Nut Zippers kind of way. What it isn’t, though, is a valid representation of the staying power of the traditional music indigenous to the Piedmont region – no matter how much marketers and Dom Flemons’
suspenders suggest otherwise. Unfortunately for the Chocolate Drops, their record closely follows the release of several top-quality compilations of old-time music from the region – Old Hat Records’ Gastonia Gallop, Smithsonian Folkways’ Classic Appalachian Blues and PineCone’s Going Down To Raleigh. Fortunately for the Drops, these compilations won’t get the same level of media attention, lest the Drops find themselves an Emperor parading about in the nude. Gastonia Gallop is, of the three compilations, most sonically similar to the Chocolate Drops, and indeed Robinson penned the liner notes’ introduction. What the collection of pre-WWII songs exhibits is a level of currency that a revivalist band could never muster, a feeling that these musicians’ motives are purely music for entertainment’s sake, rather than a scholarly pursuit. David McCarn’s “Cotton Mill Colic” rivals Woody Guthrie’s compositions for social commentary cast through personal narrative and melodic simplicity, while Watts & Wilson’s “Bay Rum Blues” plays somewhere between Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams in its Prohibition tribute to a bay rum buzz. The songwriters represented here never shied from their surroundings in place and time. They sing of Charlotte and Belmont, textile mills and illicit booze. Singing songs specific to themselves, these artists have captured, perhaps accidentally, something timeless. And while Gastonia Gallop serves as a historical document, Classic Appalachian Blues opts to highlight the vibrancy and variety within its specific aesthetic. From the intricate guitar work on Etta Baker’s “One Dime Blues” to the sputtering, talk-sung “Pawn Shop Blues” by Brownie McGhee, The Piedmont Blues
heard here – a mid-point between the Delta’s acoustic sound and Chicago’s pre-rock & roll energy, shot through with ragtime and folk – is distinct for its enthusiastic mixing of sounds. The complex acoustic guitar phrases are its most singular trait, but there’s no shortage of piano, harmonica or electric guitar, anticipating upcoming styles the way Sticks McGhee’s “My Baby’s Gone” anticipates Chuck Berry’s rattle and roll. But even long after these styles had reached younger generations through oral tradition, their relevance didn’t have to wane. Going Down To Raleigh, which compiles string-band field recordings captured between 1976 and 1998, differentiates itself mostly in recording fidelity alone. Fiddler Joe Thompson – whose numerous contributions to the collection feature his late brother Odell on banjo – served as a mentor to the Chocolate Drops, and displays the dissonant John Cale timbres that informed much of the Drops’ 2006 debut, Dona Got A Ramblin’ Mind. Here, the Thompsons play with ragged abandon, sounding infinitely younger than the old men they were at the time of recording. As A.C. Overton’s jaunty banjo lines – fluid in crooked lines like a narrow stream skipping over rocks – exemplify in “House Carpenter,” the joy here is in the music itself, not what it means. That essence was captured in every cut of these compilations. It was captured on the Drops’ Ramblin’ Mind. But with Genuine Negro Jig, the trio seems to have gotten too bogged down in recreating history to capture much of the timeless spirit that gives this music lasting vitality. The Genuine Negro Jig isn’t as fun when it’s not just Ramblin’ for its own sake. Photo by Daniel Coston
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