The Bowery Ballroom upcoming shows
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens
- Venue:
-
The Bowery Ballroom
- Date:
- Sun 3/14
- Notes:
- 21+
- Doors: 8:00 PM / Show: 8:00 PM
- $20 advance / $23 day of show
- Carolina Chocolate Drops
- official website
- myspace
- The Carolina Chocolate Drops are a group of young African-American stringband musicians that have come to together to play the rich tradition of fiddle and banjo music in Carolinas’ piedmont. Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson both hail from the green hills of the North Carolina Piedmont while Dom Flemons is native to sunny Arizona.
Although we have diverse musical backgrounds, we draw our musical heritage from the foothills of the North and South Carolina. We have been under the tutelage of Joe Thompson, said to be the last black traditional string band player, of Mebane, NC and we strive to carry on the long standing traditional music of the black and white communities.
Joe’s musical heritage runs as deeply and fluidly as the many rivers and streams that traverse our landscape. We are proud to carry on the tradition of black musicians like Odell and Nate Thompson, Dink Roberts, John Snipes, Libba Cotten, Emp White, and countless others who have passed beyond memory and recognition.
The trio of Durham-based youngsters are occasionally joined on their gigs by elder Sule Greg Wilson.
A Little on Piedmont Stringband Music
When most of people think of fiddle and banjo music, they think of the southern Appalachian Mountains as the source of this music. While the mountains of Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina are great strongholds of traditional music today, they are certainly not the source.
The nuances of piedmont stringband music stem from the demographics of the piedmont and thereby its focus on the banjo as the lead instrument. Among black ensembles, the banjo often set the pace and if a fiddle was present and it often was not, it served as accompaniment and not as the lead instrument as is more common in the Appalachian tradition. A guitar or mandolin would have been rare, but not unheard of, in these bands but the foundation of this tradition lies rooted in the antebellum combination of fiddle and banjo.
- Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens
- myspace
- Naomi Shelton first lifted her soulful voice into our family back in the Desco days of the late 1990's. Under her maiden name, Naomi Davis, she gave us Fourty First Street Breakdown which has become a secret weapon for funk DJ's. Next came the coveted Wind Your Clock 10, which surfaced only as test pressing due to the record company's untimely demise. Later she fronted Sugarman and Co. delivering 2001's Promised Land.
All of these have earned her a box seat in the theater of Funk & Soul collectors. However there is another side of Naomi that has been stirring folks longer and deeper than any funk record could ever. Like most great Soul singers, Naomi is first and foremost a Gospel singer. She has spent her life lifting her voice in churches from Alabama to Brooklyn. Though her Gospel voice (and true last name of Shelton) has been a part of the Daptone Family's life for years, performing under the musical direction of the legendary Cliff Driver whose band often featured members of the Daptone rhythym section, it has never before been allowed to fully blossom on wax in it's most natural, beautiful, and powerful form.
OTHER UPCOMING SHOWS FROM THE BOWERY PRESENTS
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