Yeah, this song rocks! Don’t like the scraggly beards but the sound is awesome!<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Carolina Chocolate Drops \u2013 Leaving Eden (2012)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/magiska.vlsweb.net.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/folder100-400x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"212\" height=\"212\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Album Review:<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Carolina Chocolate Drops third album,<em>Leaving Eden<\/em>, begins with a bang, a rousing fiddle tune (\u201cRiro\u2019s House\u201d) whose driving beat promptly had me bobbing my head and squinching up my face and generally looking rather stupid. But I didn\u2019t care. After a brief instrumental chillout\u2014a sparse minor traditional called \u201cKerr\u2019s Negro Jig\u201d\u2014it regains momentum with a percussive rendition of an old Cousin Emmy tune, \u201cRuby, Are You Mad At Your Man,\u201d a fine platform for the soulful, classically trained Rhiannon Giddens to let loose a bit with her powerful pipes.<\/p>\n<p>In case you\u2019re not yet familiar with the Chocolate Drops, much of their repertoire harks back to a time early in the last century when there were quite a number of uncelebrated black string bands\u2014including their namesake, the\u00a0Tennessee Chocolate Drops\u2014playing and composing this type of music. (When\u00a0I checked in with her\u00a0a while back, Giddens talked a bit about being inspired by the TCD\u2019s leading man, Howard Armstrong.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>This is the Drops\u2019 first album since losing the talented Justin Robinson, who has embarked onother projects. But they\u2019ve have made up for Robinson\u2019s departure with the addition of Hubby Jenkins, a black multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who shares his bandmates\u2019 passion for reinterpreting traditional American music. As before, there\u2019s so much instrument-swapping that it\u2019s well neigh impossible to keep track of who\u2019s doing what, when. Dom Flemons, Chocolate Drops\u2019 quintessential showman, guitar ringer, and third banjoist, also stands out on the percussion, driving that \u201cRiro\u2019s House\u201d beat and embellishing tunes with bones, quills, and jugs\u2014which is always fun live.<\/p>\n<p>I was mildly surprised a while back to learn that the Drops\u2019 were also picking up Adam Matta, who features prominently on several tracks. Matta is a human beatboxer who can do absolutely\u00a0unbelievable things\u00a0with nothing more than a microphone. It\u2019s an interesting combo so long as it\u2019s not overdone, and I think the Drops were pretty smart about it; in proper doses, Matta\u2019s unique skills adds a retro-modern spice to this mix. But you\u2019re unlikely to catch Matta on the band\u2019scurrent US tour, Giddens told me in a recent email. He\u2019ll be playing selected dates, but he\u2019s become more of a part-timer. But they will be bringing along cellist Leyla McCalla, who also plays on the album.<\/p>\n<p><em>Leaving Eden<\/em>\u00a0continues the Drops\u2019 M.O. of reviving old tunes, often with a black twist. You\u2019ll find quite a variety here, from the backwoods-y vibe of Etta James\u2019 \u201cWest End Blues\u201d to an adaptation of \u201cMahalla,\u201d a slack-key instrumental by South African spoon-slide player Hannes Coetzee, to Ben Curry\u2019s goofy \u201cBoodle-De-Bum-Bum\u201d and \u201cRun Mountain,\u201d a traditional that Flemons sings in such a way as makes me want to go to the back door to see if the chickens have got out.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m also liking Jenkins as cantor on the traditional call-and-response \u201cRead \u2018Em, John,\u201d while the swing-bluesy \u201cNo Man\u2019s Mama\u201d has a just-divorced wife reveling in her independence. I found Giddens\u2019 original tune \u201cCountry Girl\u201d pretty but a tad earnest; she regained my attention and more on the sweet, mournful title track\u2014a tearjerker whose lush instrumentation includes fine cello work by McCalla.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: I dig this album at least as much as I did\u00a0<em>Genuine Negro Jig<\/em>, the Drops\u2019 last recording\u2014which veteran music critic\u00a0Greil Marcus told me\u00a0was his favorite album of 2010. Did I mention that it also hit No. 1 on the bluegrass charts and won a Grammy to boot, for best traditional folk album. Nope, I don\u2019t believe these guys are leaving Eden quite yet.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #13260d;font-family: arial\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carolinachocolatedrops.com\/\">Website<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yeah, this song rocks! Don’t like the scraggly beards but the sound is awesome! Carolina Chocolate Drops \u2013 Leaving Eden (2012) Album Review: The Carolina Chocolate Drops third album,Leaving Eden, begins with a bang, a rousing fiddle tune (\u201cRiro\u2019s House\u201d) … <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/2012\/02\/28\/carolina-chocolate-drops-milwaukee-blues-live\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,20,22,28,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-country","category-bluegrass","category-favorites","category-folk","category-indie-folk","category-live"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ed.pacificu.edu\/saputospace\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}