For the first two years they were together, the members of Carolina Chocolate Drops made a living playing schools.

Grammar schools, that is.

Which makes sense, in a way, because the string band’s music has a strong educational element, and the members are all about celebrating traditional music styles and uncovering music history.

There are probably other bands that have won Grammy Awards or been featured in Rolling Stone whose members got started by performing at school assemblies. But those groups were probably attending those schools at the time.

“We played schools all over North Carolina, and we’d get maybe $300 a school,” said Dom Flemons, a multi-instrumentalist and a founding member of the band. “We’d talk about the instruments we were playing — banjo, fiddle, jug — and about where they came from. We did that until we were able to put out a record.”

Tonight, Carolina Chocolate Drops will be playing The Strand Theatre in Rockland, followed by shows Friday and Saturday at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield. All three shows are sold out.

Even though Carolina Chocolate Drops are now hot on the folk/roots scene, they’re still educating their audiences.

The tradition-steeped string band began in 2005 when Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens met at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, N.C., a celebration of the banjo’s origins in Africa and its influence. Both Flemons and Giddens felt strongly about raising awareness about the influence of African traditions, and African-Americans, on American music.

And that belief is still at the core of their music.

“The banjo is an African-derived instrument, and string bands in America formed with black and white people,” said Flemons, 29, who lives in New York City. “So our main idea is to showcase how the different musical genres were influenced by this. Blues, gospel, bluegrass are all influenced by traditional string-band music.”

But that doesn’t mean everything the band does sounds old. Besides performing traditional music such as spirituals or gospel tunes, the members of Carolina Chocolate Drops write originals and perform contemporary covers.

The band also incorporates beat boxing in some songs. Flemons will tell you that beat boxing is basically a modern way of describing something musicians have always done — making sounds that aren’t words with their mouths.

“Beat boxing is a very organic form of music, and it’s just an actual person making a sound instead of an instrument,” he said.

“Organic” is a good way to describe Flemons’ development into the music historian he’s become. He grew up in Phoenix and starting performing on guitar as a teenager, mostly old rock and ’60s folk. Then he became a record collector and started delving into different genres, including old blues, traditional American folk and New Orleans jazz. During this time, he started playing banjo — mostly because of how it sounded — but then became interested in its history.

While in college, he attended the Black Banjo Gathering, where he met Giddens and lots of folklorists and music history buffs. The experience convinced him that the string band, and its African-American heritage, was his musical calling.

“After college, I moved to North Carolina to follow the music,” Giddens said.

Carolina Chocolate Drops’ first recording for a record label, “Genuine Negro Jig” on Nonesuch, won a folk Grammy in 2011 and reached No. 1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart. The band’s latest album, “Leaving Eden,” came out in late February.

The current tour includes a guest artist, cellist Leyla McCalla, joining regular members Flemons, Giddens and Hubby Jenkins. The members all play several instruments, so you’re likely to see any of them handling a fiddle, a banjo, a jug or a snare drum.

And the music on their recent album and at their shows is just as diverse.

“The old-time style is always there, but we might do a contemporary song, an original song and a lot of things based on traditional music. We want to present good musicianship and good tunes,” said Flemons.

While some bands don’t like to be labeled, Flemons has no problem with the media referring to Carolina Chocolate Drops as an “African-American string band.” The members are all African-American, Flemons said, and the term helps get audiences thinking about the band’s core mission.

“We’re OK with that, because it really helps get the discussion started,” he said. “And that’s great.”

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

Twitter: @RayRouthier

 

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