Rhiannon Giddens Instagram – Feb 11: Black Banjo Renaissance Post #1
Joe Thompson and the Carolina Chocolate Drops
I’d like to focus this week on what I’m calling the current Black Banjo Rennaisance- historians like Kristina Gaddy putting out beautiful books about early black banjo history, young folks like Jake Blount releasing black banjo music, and in general the profile of the banjo getting a more nuanced view.
Taj Mahal, Earl White, Otis Taylor, Etta Baker, Sule Greg Wilson, the Ebony Hillbillies – these are among the folks keeping the legacy of the banjo in black hands alive in the years before 2005, but when the Black Banjo Gathering happened in that year it kickstarted a slowburning but new resurgence in black banjo playing. One of the things that happened there was the meeting of the young people who eventually became the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and their connection to elder Joe Thompson. The original CCD was: me, Justin Robinson, and Dom Flemons. Justin and Dom have both gone on to do many wonderful things highlighting African American contributions in music and foodways, and i’ll feature them later in the week.
But it all started with Joe. This from my essay for Oxford American some time ago:
“Joe Thompson was the last in his family’s line of community musicians. He learned the fiddle from his father, and his brother learned the banjo from an uncle; as soon as they were old enough, they took over the family band and played for the local square dances—the black and the white. They were part of a dying tradition: musicians from the community playing functional music for social dances, not to make a living but because that’s simply what they did. They were also among the last living links to a vast black string band tradition that used to be spread all over the South and other parts of the U.S. but had slowly disappeared until very few were left. And they were swallowed up by the wider societal notion that fiddle and banjo music was strictly a white preserve. [cont.] | Posted on 13/Feb/2024 02:16:03
