CHOCOLATE DROPS

The Carolina Chocolate Drops from, where else, North Carolina closed out this year’s Alaska Folk Festival this Sunday evening. The antebellum combination of banjo, fiddle, and voice used to be a tradition in most black rural communities in the South. Wow! What a performance by the Chocolate Drops! Every member of the group was fantastic. I enjoyed Sule Greg Wilson, a percussionist on washboard and the Bodhrán Irish drum, and the fellow who made clickety-clack tap dance sounds with musical bones – but to me the star was of the Chocolate Drops was young Rhiannon Giddens.

What a remarkable talent is Rhiannon Giddens: Mountain music fiddler exemplar, five-string banjo picker extraordinaire, country dance soloist, singer with a burly tough blues voice! But guess what? She also has a degree in voice from Oberlin College, and sings opera on the concert stage. In the cover of the CD I purchased, she says, "The music tells of my family, black, white, and native. It is home to me, and I feel honored and Blessed to be able to play it and keep some of these traditions alive." People like Rhiannon Giddens make me realize how little I’ve accomplished - I may throw away my saxophone (not really).

The folk festival ended, as it traditionally does, with a group sing (me too) of “Good Night Irene.” That plaintive folk song brings back memories – we used to sing “Good Night Irene” in the barracks when I was in Air Force basic training at Lackland AFB.