Out of the Musical Closet

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I'm free at last to come out of the musical closet and profess my love of banjo and fiddle music that most blacks think is the sole province of white Appalachian bluegrass pickers ... but it's really not.

An almost forgotten part of American history is that while segregation and slavery was the law of the land, black and white musicians in the south developed, and together played, a style of music that coupled Celtic reels with the African rhythms slaves brought to this country with them and first played on their homemade string gourds. Later they would become first-rate fiddlers.

However, when their style of fiddle playing became part of the minstrel and coon shows popular during the era of Jim Crow, blacks by-and-large abandoned their own musical heritage ... which was being used to mimic their destitute and mocked condition. Nonetheless, the genre survived in the hands and memories of people like 90-year-old Joe Thompson and Papa John Creach, who played with the Jefferson Airplane back in the day. And the style of playing is making a revival.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops is an African-American string band trio who view Thompson as their spiritual father. The Durham, SC band recently released the bravely-named "Genuine Negro Jig." Now, if you say the words "Negro" and "Jig" in the same sentence in many black communities' people will think that you're itching for a fight ... but that's just not the case.

This fairly young group of talented performers not only plays string instruments, they are also virtuosos on such instruments as the kazoo and even the jug. Almost single-handedly they are thankfully attempting to bring back a part of black culture, tradition and music that was almost lost. Go see for yourself.

In our rush to erase every vestige of slavery we blacks threw out a lot of good stuff along with the bad.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops appear at The Beachland Ballroom on Wed 3/10. http://www.beachlandballroom.com