The Drops

I spent Thursday afternoon, September 27th, hanging out in Buffalo, New York. The goal of the trip was a concert by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but I still used the afternoon and late evening for taking photos. I'll get to the city photos eventually, but I've been going through the concert photos first.

The Chocolate Drops have a couple of obvious differences between themselves and the bluegrass bands that I listen to. First of all, they're not bluegrass: in the centre-stage background you'll see a drum. They're largely playing traditional music that reaches back a half-century or more – one pair of songs are from a song book published a hundred and fifty-seven years ago – with a particular emphasis on carrying on the African-American traditions around the fiddle and banjo.

But even within their historical emphasis, they play a good variety of material. Lyrics are sung in Scottish Gaelic and Haitian Creole, and in my opinion their covers of "Hit Em Up Style" (Blu Cantrell) and "You Be Illin" (Run DMC) are legitimately better than hearing Johnny Cash singing "Personal Jesus".