By Rosalind Cummings-Yeates
SWEET CAROLINA
H
ubby Jenkins is sipping Irish
Breakfast tea in his Queens home.
An avowed caffeine fiend when
he's on tour, he prefers the relaxing attributes of tea when he's not and when he's
conducting phone interviews. As a multiinstrumentalist member of the Carolina
Chocolate Drops, a band that's managed
to bring centuries-old folk music back into
popular culture, it seems fitting that he follows another old tradition like tea drinking. Unlike tea traditions, the string band
pre-WWI, and some is from the 1800s. It's
a different definition of old time. It's not
just banjo and fiddle music, it's really
genre-less," says Jenkins of the Chocolate
Drops' repertoire. "We play different traditions with different songs; it's a little bit of
everything."
Everything is a good description for an
album that swings from the rousing, handclapping, call and response of "Read Em'
John," to the laconic melody of the 1800's
era instrumental, "Kerr's Negro Jig," and
Photo: Michael Wilson
Carolina Chocolate Drops, Hubby Jenkins (top right)
sound had largely died out with its creators until these Grammy-winning, young
media darlings re-invigorated and reintroduced the music. Simply calling their
multi-layered style "old time," it's not easy
to briefly explain exactly what they play.
"I tell people that we play fiddle/banjo
old time music and that includes old time
blues, old time jazz and I always mention
that we're all black," explains Jenkins. That
black part is highly significant as Jenkins
point out, "name any other black string
band. It's a big part of American history
that's been forgotten."
The Carolina Chocolate Drops were
founded in 2005 after Rhiannon Giddens,
Dom Flemmons and Justin Robinson met
at the annual Black Banjo Gathering in
North Carolina. Honoring the '20s era
black string band, the Tennessee Chocolate
Drops and its fiddler Joe Thompson, who
schooled the trio on the music, the group
set out to present a modern take on a traditional sound. Their 2010 debut, Genuine
Negro Jig (Nonesuch) snagged a Best
Traditional Folk Album Grammy but it's
their follow up and current release,
Leaving Eden (Nonesuch), that showcases
the breadth of traditional music and how it
can be interpreted for contemporary sensibilities.
A smorgasbord of sounds, textures and
influences, the 15-track offering shines
with the dynamic energy that's essential to
keep throwback music sounding alive and
not mummif YY