Once again I braved the 10 blocks of sidewalk from my apartment to the Seattle Zoo for an outdoor concert, this time for the Carolina Chocolate Drops. What a show!
The thing that impressed me most was that it was a sold-out event, at least [ **
2,000 ** just found out, it's 3,800! ** ] people showed up to hear a set list that included:
A tune from Joe Thompson, a black Carolina fiddler who I think is still alive and playing at age 92 (
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/thompson.htm),
?Don?t Get Trouble in Your Mind,? which I?ve heard done by the New Lost City Ramblers,
Papa Charlie Jackson?s ?Your Baby Ain?t Sweet Like Mine,?
J. E. Mainer?s ?Run Mountain, Chug a Little Hill,? with Dom Flemons playing banjo and quills on a rack,
?Camptown Hornpipe? in a medley with another tune from Brigg?s mid-19th century banjo instruction book,
Ethel Waters? ?Anticipation,?
?I Truly Understand, You Love Another Man,? originally recorded by Shortbuckle Roark during the same Bristol recording sessions that gave the world Jimmy Rodgers,
?Poor Black Sheep,? from a field recording of black folk music made by John Work III,
?Polly Put Your Kettle On,?
?Old Cat Died / Brown?s Dream,?
?Sourwood Mountain?
?Read ?Em John,? from the Georgia Sea Islands.
They played some other tunes, including three from an EP they recently made with two members of the Luminescent Orchestrii from Brooklyn, who just happened to be in Seattle this week and added another fiddle and a National guitar to the stage.
Look at that set list! To think, 3,800 people paid a double-sawbuck each to sit on the grass, eat a picnic dinner, and listen to a bunch of old black string band songs and fiddle tunes and breakdowns from three young black performers (plus a fourth Drop who calls himself a ?beatboxer and vocal performance artist?). Reports of this kind of music dying are truly premature.
If Centrum can find the funds, I think it would be great to have Dom Flemons return as an insructor, and to bring the rest of the band with him this time.
Lindy
