Going back to where they began both geographically and musically, former Carolina Chocolate Drops Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson are together again on What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow: Fiddle and Banjo Music of North Carolina. 

Recorded outdoors at the N.C. homes of late CCD mentor Joe Thompson, the Drops’ hero Etta Baker, also deceased, and the former Mill Prong House plantation, the 18 tracks feature Giddens on banjo and Robinson on fiddle; birdsong; and occasional accompaniment from Demeanor on rhythm bones. Majority instrumental, but with a handful of vocal turns from Robinson with Giddens on harmony, Blackbird is both a look back and toward a future where musicians like Giddens and Robinson reclaim Black music for themselves and share it with the rest of the world. 

To hear the reunited friends and musical colleagues laughing and bantering at the end of takes on stomping “Rain Crow,” the swaying “Country Waltz,” the shimmering “Marching Jaybird” and other tracks confirms the fun in such important work.