Don’t Get Trouble In Your Mind: On Film, An Emotional Journey With The Carolina Chocolate Drops
It seems like such a long time since The Carolina Chocolate Drops came upon us and helped to redefine roots music, in turn winning a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for their innovative album Genuine Negro Jig.
In the documentary Don’t Get Trouble in Your Mind: The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Story, independent filmmaker John Whitehead puts you back in time to the early years of the millennium when three aspiring musicians got together at the Black Banjo Conference. Whitehead’s film moves in real time through the ensuing fame that came unsuspectingly and had devastating consequences for the three as a collective. (The film is available on video on demand and comes to streaming May 30.)
Along the way he documents the inspiration that was inspired by playing with Joe Thompson. The elderly musician emerges as a wiseman from the country whose transference of divine music knowledge inspires a new generation to go out and conquer the world.
Whitehead captures early footage of the Drops visiting a schoolroom to remind young students about the African origins of the instruments they play. But as the group‘s popularity rises, they soon turn into a touring machine beset by the perils of the road including bad food, lack of sleep and longing for home that befalls touring musicians.
The documentary might have been a conventional story of a band that breaks under pressure but the underlying dynamics of the three personalities make the film unique and riveting. There’s the unspoken and later broken romance between Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons. When Giddens marries her new husband, he comes along on the road with their new baby. The events provide an underlying tension that threads the narrative and takes the film into reality show space.
As the trio delivers electrifying performances at venues and festivals, the first victim of the newfound fame is Justin Robinson who leaves the band. The Drops’ empathetic treatment of Robinson who hailed from rural North Carolina is also a homage to the origins of a world that birthed the trio but they largely left as fame claimed them as their own.
Whitehead also intersperses footage of Flemons and company taking their music to the streets. Flemons wrote the introduction to Cary Baker’s book on busking, Down On The Corner and this footage brings to life his desire to connect with people and a spiritual connection to the craft of their busking brethren.
Don’t Get Trouble In Your Mind is a masterful film that takes what once seemed like a small project that morphed into a group that achieved success beyond their dreams. When you get immersed in Whitehead’s film, you forget that you already know how the story ends. Perhaps this is why you may shed some tears when the director takes you into the moments of their last show. Looking back, it’s hard to believe so much time has passed and by the time the credits roll, we’re back to present day and the original three Chocolate Drops are scattered across the globe. Their lives have moved on and Whitehead has taken you through an incredible emotional journey of a moment in time and what once was.
For more about Don’t Get Trouble In Your Mind, visit: http://www.fretlessfilms.com