If you’ve not heard The Carolina Chocolate Drops, the young black string band specializing in the piedmont style of old time music, check them out today (3/17) on WDVX’s Blue Plate Special.

The show airs at noon (ET) on WDVX, broadcasting at 102.9 FM in Knoxville, TN - and via live streaming online.

The Third Annual Folk Alliance Awards were presented during the 20th Annual Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis, TN, on Wednesday evening, February 20, 2008.

We have already mentioned the Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients:

• Mavis Staples
• Tommy Jarrell
• Rounder Records

Other winners that may be of interest to bluegrass aficionados include …

• Legacy Recording - Woody Guthrie The Live Wire (Woody Guthrie Archives)
• Emerging Artist - Carolina Chocolate Drops
• Album of the Year - Uncle Earl - Waterloo, Tennessee
• Small Folk Venue - Freight & Salvage, San Francisco, California (Tied with Cafe Lena - Saratoga Springs, NewYork)
• Large Folk Venue - The Ark, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Unsuccessful Nominations include ….

• Legacy Recording - Various Artists - People Take Warning: Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs (Tompkins Square)
• Traditional Artist - Uncle Earl and David Bromberg
• Large Folk Venue - The Birchmere - Arlington, VA, and Kennedy Center Millenium Stage - Washington, DC

The award for Album of the Year was chosen based on Folk-DJ Chart airplay.

Students and fans of bluegrass and old time music, and a great many people with an interest in American folk music, know of the African roots of our beloved banjo. Academics and ethnomusicologists have written extensively on the topic, but the instrument has had precious few practitioners among black Americans in recent history.

Events like Tony Thomas’ Black Banjo Gathering have worked to reclaim it’s African heritage - and explain it to younger American blacks - while the tremendous popularity of the Carolina Chocolate Drops has presented black banjo music to festival and concert audiences worldwide.

Now, we have the latest release from blues artist Otis Taylor, entitled Recapturing The Banjo, which is a move in just that direction. Due on February 5 from Telarc Records, the CD features not only Taylor, but other black banjoists Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb’ Mo’ and Don Vappie as well.

“The banjo has become so closely associated with folk singers and bluegrass players. Over the years, the instrument just lost touch with its roots, and I’m just trying to re-establish that connection.

I wanted to make an album that was historically significant, but at the same time, I didn’t want to make a record that that was too academic. It’s not a history lesson that needs to be pushed in anyone’s face. We just wanted to reconnect the music back to the people who brought it here in the first place.”

The music is presented with a variety of banjo styles on both 4 and 5 string instruments, and has won some rave reviews both for the strength of Taylor’s original songs and the overall impact of the many performers’ contributions. We could not find any audio samples online, but they should appear soon on the Telarc web site.

Telarc has put together a YouTube video showcasing the artists whose music is featured on Recapturing The Banjo, which includes both commentary and banjo picking.

To find out more about the African roots of the modern banjo, check these resources:

• The Old Time Herald article by Pete Szego
• The History of Gourd Banjos
• Black Banjo Gathering
• The Banjo: From Africa to America and beyond
• Banjo Ancestors: The Lutes Of West Africa
• Banjo Roots on MySpace

Newsweek and MSNBC.com have posted an online feature on The Carolina Chocolate Drops, the black string band making waves at festivals all over the US this summer. Their sound is a mix of jug band and old time music, but all heavily influenced by the contributions that US black and African folk artists made to Appalachian musical culture.

“People ask us, ‘Are y’all from the mountains?’,” says fiddler Justin Robinson, a North Carolina native. “What they’re really asking is, ‘Why the hell are you playing this?’” His answer: “It’s a reclamation.” Robinson, fellow Carolinian Rhiannon Giddens and Arizona-born multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons met two years ago at the annual Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, N.C. Under the tutelage of fiddler Joe Thompson, one of the last surviving practitioners of the black fiddle style that once provided the soundtrack to North Carolina’s hilly Piedmont region, the Carolina Chocolate Drops learned their roots and honed their chops. Last month they released their first album, an infectious hoedown of a record called “Dona Got a Ramblin’ Mind.” Now they’re one of the hottest tickets on the old-time and folk-music festival circuit. “In the black community most of the time they’re shocked we’re doing this,” says Flemons. “A lot of black people like country music and old-time music, but they can’t relate because the people playing it don’t look like them.”

The full article - with two live performance video clips - can be found on the MSNBC/Newsweek web site. There is also a lengthy interview with the band posted at RealCountryMusic.org.

You can hear audio samples from their CD on The Carolina Chocolate Drops MySpace page.

They also have a YouTube clip of themselves competing at the Mt. Airy Fiddler’s Convention this past spring.