Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind Review

by Bob Jones 

The old-time string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops were all anyone could talk about at this year's Merlefest. This according to my old hippie friend, Roger, when he came back from his annual pilgrimage to the big bluegrass festival in North Carolina. I like bluegrass just fine, but I prefer the rawer sound of old-time, which musicologists agree is decades, if not a century or so, older than bluegrass. (As for why bluegrass festivals are what old hippies do these days, you'll have to ask the sociologists.) After deciding that any band politically incorrect enough to name themselves after the 1920s string band the Tennessee Chocolate Drops had to be checked out post-haste. I pulled up Youtube video to see three young African- American musicians playing the fire out of some old-time string-band music. I couldn't wait to get my hands on their disc, and Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind didn't let me down. The vocal harmonies are right on, and the fiddle and banjo style are straight out of the turn of the century. Not the last one but the one before. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are Rhiannon Giddens on vocal, fiddle, and banjo, Justin Robinson on fiddle and vocals, and Dom Flemons on everything else, including the jug. Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind has 16 songs that are older than the Drops' great-great-grandparents. It's hard to be pioneers in a musical genre where you can be judged by how "traditional" your sound is, but the Carolina Chocolate Drops have breathed new life into these vintage tunes right here in 2007.