Dona Got a Ramblin Mind [Digipak] (CD - 2006)

Additional personnel: Sule Greg Wilson (percussion).

Some 80 years after its initial era, traditional string-band/jug-band folk music of the kind played by Gid Tanner and Uncle Eck Dunford in the 1920s and '30s was a rarity in itself, but the fact that the Carolina Chocolate Drops are young African-Americans rather than aged Caucasians makes them stand out even more. The trio employs fiddle, acoustic guitar, banjo, and--yes--jug, for a sound that's full of reverence for first-generation string-band music but breathes with plenty of sonic vitality. Unsurprisingly, there are traditional tunes aplenty on the band's debut album, DONA GOT A RAMBLIN' MIND, and the Chocolate Drops tear into them with the same reckless abandon that made their musical heroes' music so immediately appealing so many years earlier. minimize