Another 80's classic for today's post, Town Called Malice was a double A-side single release featuring Precious as the flip side. Released as the first single from their new album The Gift, on 29 January 1982, it entered the chart at number one in the UK music charts, staying at the top for three weeks. It was the band's third number-one single in the UK. It was the band's sole chart entry onto any American chart (although this single and "Start!" both appeared in the low-rungs of the Billboard Dance/Club Play charts) when it hit #31 on the Rock Chart in 1982.
I Can't believe this song is 30 years old this year, back in 1982 when Story of the Blues was released I was 14 and still at school. I think this has got to be my all time favourite 80's track. So for my next few posts I'll be showing a few more of my favourite 80's tracks.
Story of the Blues reached No3 in the UK chart. I was going to post the actual video for the song, but it bought back too many bad memories of bad 80's fashion!
Firstly I want to say thanks to D4 for introducing me to this fantastic group!! He only put this song up on his blog last week, but I just had to post it too!!!
Taking the music industry by storm, Carolina Chocolate Drops is an old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina. Their 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards, and was number nine in fRoots magazine's top 10 albums of 2010. Last year also saw Carolina Chocolate Drops play to sell-out audiences and festival crowds across the UK. As The Times remarked in one live review, 'In the end, a standing ovation was the only possible response. Anything, you sense, is possible now'.
The group is one of the few remaining African American string bands. Carolina Chocolate Drops have their feet firmly planted in the legacy of African-American musical history and can deliver an amazing live performance - shifting from gospel to blues and jazz to a more rural-based old-timey sound. Their music doesn't attempt to replicate the past but rather to absorb it and regenerate the music as something alive in today's world.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops are Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Hubby Jenkins. The band formed after founding members Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson met at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, NC in 2005. All three trained in the Piedmont banjo and fiddle musical tradition under the tutelage of Joe Thompson, who, at age 90, is believed to be the last living performer from the Piedmont string band heyday. Multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins joined the group in early 2011, as Justin Robinson departed to take up new challenges.
