Music

CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS
Iowa debut | One of the hottest acts on the folk and Americana scenes, the Carolina Chocolate Drops are a group of young African-American stringband musicians who have come together to play the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music from the Carolina Piedmont.
Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson both hail from the green hills of the Piedmont themselves, while Dom Flemons is a transplant from sunny Arizona. Despite their diverse musical backgrounds, they draw a common musical heritage from the foothills of the North and South Carolina. They are proud to follow in the footsteps of such black musicians as Odell and Nate Thompson, Dink Roberts, John Snipes, Libba Cotten, Emp White, and countless others who have passed beyond memory and recognition.
In recent years the members of Carolina Chocolate Drops have been under the tutelage of Joe Thompson of Mebane, North Carolina, said to be the last black traditional string band player. Joe’s musical heritage, it's been said, "runs as deeply and fluidly as the many rivers and streams that traverse our landscape." His followers strive to carry on that heritage, preserving the invaluable and longstanding traditions of both black and white communities.
A favorite of critics and audiences alike, the Drops are receiving rave notices wherever they go. In the August 23 issue of Rolling Stone, David Fricke reviewed their new CD, Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind. "Carolina Chocolate Drops are three young black musicians revisiting, with a joyful vengeance, black string-band and jug-band music of the Twenties and Thirties — the dirt-floor-dance electricity of the Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon’s Jug Stompers. Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind is dazzling in its velocity and virtuosity, while the a cappella lament 'Another Man Done Gone' and the waltz 'Short Life of Trouble' ensure that you don’t miss the blues that drove those pioneers to make such defiantly ecstatic music."
Tue Sep 11 | 8 pm
CSPS | 1103 Third St SE | Cedar Rapids
$14 advance | $17 day of show

Ticket info
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