v i b e s THE REAL Y’ALTERNATIVE NYC string band navigates the ebony and irony of Americana BY KANDIA CRAZY HORSE version of “Dueling Banjos (Black to the Future mix)” anytime soon. owboy Troy, the long, tall Texas country- The Ebony Hillbillies’ own extant CDs will rapper, is the nation’s leading proponent of have to tide y’all over until the eventual sepia hick-hopC — or rather the most prominent one. His twang revolution (don’t tell Diddy!). Sabrina’s heavily rotated CMT clip for the infectious, fiddle- Holiday and I Thought You Knew (forthcoming and-banjo-fueled single “I Play Chicken with the on Lincolnton-based Gaff Records) provide a Train” features a curiously integrated audience great introduction to a largely forgotten African “raising the roof” to lyrics like “I’m big and black, American cultural legacy. The trio’s take on classic clickety-clack/And I made the train jump the track black string-band repertoire includes “Cotton- like that.” A tepid rap boast, indeed. Eyed Joe,” “Sugar in the Gourd,” “Hell Among How much cooler would Cowboy Troy’s the Yearlings” and “Yellow Rose of Texas,” a tune challenge to Music Row be if he had enlisted New originating from a black minstrel show which is York’s Ebony Hillbillies, three urban hipsters who actually an ode to the singer’s “sweetest girl of play the subway stations and city streets as the self- color a fella ever knew.” proclaimed “last black string band in America”? Head Hillbilly Enrique Prince certainly has the chops to back anyone. Hailing from a family of musicians from St. Thomas, Prince grew up around all kinds of music, from instrumental dance to traditional Caribbean, Hawaiian and country styles. In his preteens, he taught himself to shuffle on violin, his favorite instrument. “The desire to play with a banjo player and bass stems from an intuitive understanding of how these instruments fit together musically,” Prince told us via e-mail from his New York home. As for why the Ebony Hillbillies took it to the streets, Prince said, “I had a street-corner band when I was ten. Basically, it’s economics. The subways afford you an instant stage and a perpetual audience...” Despite the surprised and delighted Gotham audiences, the Ebony Hillbillies — Prince, multi- instrumentalist Norris Bennett and bassist Dave MARTHA HOLMES Colding — probably won’t be featured on CMT. One, they’re based in New York, far from country music’s Southeastern centers; two, they play a prewar form of hillbilly music championed by Ebony Hillbillies institutions like Charlotte’s Folk Society rather than shiny Nashvegas; and three, of course, they’re of So, with these standards along with dulcimer African descent. and autoharp in the mix, the Ebony Hillbillies The 19th-century string band sound produced cannot be dismissed as inauthentic. And the brothers by a core of fiddle, banjo and guitar was popular in and sisters in general need to recognize that their the 1920s and 1930s, and was a key element in the claim to the twang is as legitimate as that of the genesis of jazz and virtually everything after (blues, Scots-Irish mafia. Peep Prince’s useful illumination bluegrass, rockabilly, rock & roll). But big country of the African roots of old-time music: “Africans, labels today aren’t interested in history, they’re particularly West Africans, have had string bands for interested in money, and that means repressing centuries...The ekonting is the banjo’s ancestor. The country music’s inner hillbilly. ekonting players were said to have been captured To make things even more difficult, the and made to perform on the decks of slave ships to Ebony Hillbillies are not likely to get much allow the (enslaved Africans) to get enough exercise support from blacks, beyond the boho types that to survive the Middle Passage. Left off in America, frequent NYC’s Astor Place in the East Village these players became the first black fiddlers and and other hip precincts. They say twang is not a made the earliest gourd banjos. Somewhere up in color, but the reality is that the Ebony Hillbillies the mountains of Appalachia, knowledge of the can still encounter black audiences imprisoned banjo got transferred to other groups.” by stereotypes of cowboys and Lou Gossett Jr.’s Is that black enough for ya? “Fiddler” from Roots. Since the Civil Rights era made rural history unfashionable and blackness The Ebony Hillbillies will be performing at bona fides paramount, most “Bucks” (per Don Festival in the Park at the Folk Society Stage at Cheadle’s C&W-loving character in Boogie Freedom Park. There are two chances to catch Nights) keep their country jones in the closet. So ’em: Saturday, September 24, at 8pm, and Sunday, don’t expect an Ebony Hillbillies/Big & Rich September 25, at 2pm. This event is free..