“COUNTRY GIRL” VIDEO FROM GRAMMY-WINNING CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS DEBUTS IN CMT.COM’S TOP 5, AIRS ON CMT

LEAVING EDEN, PRODUCED BY BUDDY MILLER,
AVAILABLE NOW

TOUR CONTINUES THROUGHOUT SUMMER,
INCLUDES DATES WITH DAVE MATTHEWS BAND

After rating as one of the most-watched music videos on CMT.com following its premiere last week, the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ video for the track “Country Girl” will air throughout this week on CMT’s “High 5 Countdown.” The show airs at 11:00 A.M. Eastern/Pacific Time Monday-Friday and the video can be viewed online at http://on.cmt.com/KiXsnQ. “Country Girl” appears on the Grammy-winning band’s new album Leaving Eden, out now on Nonesuch Records.

The group is continuing their North American tour throughout the summer including a run of shows with the Dave Matthews Band; please see below for full schedule.

Leaving Eden the group’s follow-up to their lauded label debut—2010’s Grammy Award-winning Genuine Negro Jig—is a record of original compositions, covers and traditional songs produced by Buddy Miller (Emmylou Harris, Robert Plant, Solomon Burke). Critical praise for the album includes:

“Eden grows handsome fruit from a nation’s tangled roots…a lesson in 21st-century American folk—a tradition that’s as miscegenated as ever, and stronger for it.” –Rolling Stone

“The band challenges limited notions of black musicianship by exploring string-band music.” –NPR

“Exciting audiences as instrumentalists, singers, even as dancers, while digging further into the broad legacy of Southern music…a core trio of Mr. Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Hubby Jenkins…have defied genre classification by charging, fully prepared, into many fields.” –The Wall Street Journal

“Incredibly powerful music with a brand of resilience that, unlike the system that ensnared its creators, not only has survived but has also emerged victorious over it. The Carolina Chocolate Drops didn’t just manifest this music but proved how much energy remains within these songs.” –Los Angeles Times

“[The Carolina Chocolate Drops are] simply a great band. Leaving Eden captures the variety of their exhilarating live shows.” –USA Today

With Leaving Eden the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ founding members Dom Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens expand their lineup to include multi-instrumentalist Hubby Jenkins; during their live sets the members share singing duties and swap instruments regularly. (Cellist Leyla McCalla also joins the band on the record and on tour.)

The Drops have toured year-round internationally since the band’s inception, playing festivals such as Bonnaroo, SXSW, and Telluride and selling out concert halls and clubs. The band regularly receives critical accolades from publications such as the Seattle Times, which said “What a treat to bask in this Grammy-winning group’s top- notch musicality, easy good humor and understated but sparkling showmanship with just the right dollop of historical background.” And the Capital Times (Madison, WI) said, “The string band performed a joyful, high- energy show that had the packed, sweaty theater moving and cheering for the entire time. The band’s sound is rooted in, and very reverent to, the traditional African-American string band sound of generations ago. But the attitude is anything but old-timey, as the band brought in hip-hop and soul elements, a no-holds-barred energy, and just a sense of playfulness to the songs.”