This is part of our monthly series of interviews with musicians who perform in the Berkshires.
Hubby Jenkins is a multi-instrumentalist who performs and studies old-time American music. He has performed and recorded with the Rhiannon Giddens Band and earlier with Giddens and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which earned him a Grammy® nomination for the band’s Leaving Eden album.
We first saw Hubby perform this past June at The Guthrie Center in Great Barrington. He started his performance with his tagline, “I’m Hubby Jenkins from Brooklyn, New York, and I play old-time music and talk about Black people.”
Hubby has an upcoming performance at Race Brook Lodge on Thursday, September 5. I had the opportunity to catch up over Zoom with Hubby to learn more about his upcoming show, his love of old-time American music, and other projects. I hope you enjoy our conversation, which has been lightly edited for clarity.
Thanks for taking the time to speak today. My first question is, where are you today, and what are you working on?
I’m actually home in New York City, in Queens. Today, I was doing some chores around the house, which has been fun. It’s funny how you miss those domestic things when you’re on the road. I’ve been wanting to barbecue and clean my house. Besides that, I’ve also been working on some electric bass stuff. A friend of mine asked me to play bass with him. My favorite bass player of all time is James Jamerson, the Motown house bassist, so I enjoy playing soul electric bass when I’m not doing old-time music. So yeah, just doing those kinds of things.
Are there any other projects you’re working on right now, aside from playing bass and doing stuff around the house?
Yes, I’m also working on music for what could become an interesting theater piece, though I can’t talk too much about it yet. I’ve been collecting dirty songs as well to do a flip side of my religious gospel music obsession that’s been ongoing for the last couple of years. I’m also trying to figure out how to discuss topics like Black sexuality—still in development, but those are the other nerdy things I’m working on.
You have an upcoming performance at Race Brook Lodge in Sheffield here in the Berkshires on Thursday, September 5. Can you tell our readers a little bit about what they can expect at that show?
Sure! My tagline has become, “I’m Hubby Jenkins from Brooklyn, New York, and I play old-time music and talk about Black people.” And I like to think I deliver on that promise. When I think about old-time music, it covers a lot of different traditional early American music forms. It could be fiddle and banjo, Appalachian style, or Piedmont style; it could be different types of blues, early jazz, early country, gospel, spirituals, or pop songs from the ’20s. I never make setlists, so I don’t always know what will happen at a show, but that’s generally what to expect. I’m a big fan of medleys and audience participation, so it should be a good night.
Have you played at Race Brook Lodge before?
I don’t think I have, so this will be a new experience for me.
Have you played other places in the Berkshires besides the Guthrie Center?
No, I think that was my first time playing in the Berkshires and maybe even my first time being there. It was a new experience for me, but I’m glad to be getting called back. Hopefully, the Berkshires and I will get to know each other better.
We hope to see you back again. Your bio mentions your interest in African American history and America’s traditional music forms. Can you tell us a little about your early musical influences and how you got into traditional music?
I grew up playing music, starting with the saxophone. In high school, I got into ’60s music—Hendrix, The Doors, Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan. That led me to folk music and country blues, and I started listening to people like Dave Van Ronk, Skip James, and Bukka White. That’s what inspired me to get my first guitar and learn country blues. As I learned more, I discovered that the banjo was originally a Black instrument and was recognized as such for a century. That realization opened my mind to a lot of ideas—both musical and historical—like, why don’t we associate Black people with the banjo anymore? It was a journey I took on my own for a while, thinking I was the only Black person doing it. Then I met Dom Flemons and the rest of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, became a member, and fast forward to now—there are so many beautiful Black people playing old-time music and re-inserting us into the narrative of American history and music. I feel very fortunate to be a part of that movement.
You mentioned the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I read that you played with them from either 2010 or 2011 until 2016 and were nominated for a Grammy® for the band’s Leaving Eden album. You also performed with Rhiannon Giddens on her Factory Girl EP. What was that time period like for you?
Yeah, I can’t remember if it was 2010 or 2011 either—I think I got the gig in 2010, and we started in 2011. It was an amazing time. I was in an all-Black string band, touring the world, playing the banjo. I took a year off from college, which I’m technically still in, and just hit the road. It was incredible but also exhausting—my first year, we did 250 shows. So, yeah, it had its challenges, but overall, it was good times.
Do you still stay in touch with the members of the band?
With some of them, yeah.
I understand you play banjo, guitar, mandolin, bones, and bass guitar, and you grew up playing saxophone. I saw a reel of you on Instagram playing fiddle as well. Did I cover all the instruments you play, or are there others? And is there one you enjoy the most?
I’ve also started working on piano a bit, though I wouldn’t call myself a piano player yet. I can fake it on a harmonica in a pinch. As for favorites, it depends on the day—sometimes the banjo is frustrating, sometimes the guitar isn’t doing it for me. Lately, I’ve been really into the guitar because I’m on a Joseph Spence kick. If I ever retire, I think I’d want to pick up the pedal steel—that seems like an instrument I’d enjoy in my later years.
Have you ever played pedal steel?
No, not yet.
You’ve put out two albums, a self-titled full-length one in 2016 and a four-track EP, The Fourth Day. Do you have plans to release more music?
I do. I’m sitting on some masters right now, working on the artwork and preparing for a self-release. I was aiming for Christmas, but let’s say Black History Month instead—seems more realistic. I’ve been slow with my musical output, even though I know a bunch of songs, but there’s definitely more to come.
We’ll be on the lookout for that! You also mentioned collecting “dirty songs” earlier—will those be included?
No, that’ll be its own project down the line. The upcoming release is more of a collection of songs I find interesting now. I was spending a lot of time with a guy named Phil Wiggins, who was a blues harmonica player who passed away. He had a famous duo, Cephas and Wiggins, for a very long time. Between that and playing at a blues club in New York, this project leans more into my bluesy roots. There’s only one banjo track on it.
I saw on your website that you did a virtual series called Choose Your Adventure in 2020, during the pandemic. Can you tell us more about that?
The Choose Your Adventure books were a big part of my childhood. In those books, you don’t read front to back—you make choices, and those choices determine the outcome. I’ve collected a lot of them over the years and started reading them again. I’m also a big Andy Kaufman fan, and I wanted to do something different at my shows, something that would be interactive and fun. So, I started incorporating the audience making choices in the books as part of my performances.
Another reason I started doing this was that as I began being more direct in my shows about Black history and our lineage with racism and oppression and so on, it started to bring about some conflict. As a New Yorker, I don’t mind conflict, but it can derail a show. Using the books was a way to diffuse that tension. It disarms people—one minute, we’re in a magical castle fighting a wizard, and the next, we’re discussing the prison system and how it developed after Reconstruction and how we still live in a country that manipulates people in this prison system. And then we go back to the book. It gives people an opportunity to sit and stew, and whatever their feelings are, it allows them to just enjoy this whole show as a big piece. And it goes back to my thing of polling an audience. I just love that feeling – that give and take, back and forth.
Your performances don’t just entertain people but also educate and engage people on Black history and race. How important is that educational aspect to you?
I would say it’s extremely important. That’s the whole shtick. During the beginnings of this current civil rights movement with Black Lives Matter, when I was going out protesting, and when Colin Kaepernick was kneeling, and we started doing Black Lives Matter brunches, I realized I didn’t want my shows to be a space where people didn’t think about Black issues, or didn’t have to be confronted with it.
Next, it’s my Black pride. I feel Black pride, and this is our music, and it’s connected to all this history, and it’s all tied in together. It makes the music more interesting. You come to see a Black man play this music, so I’m just going to talk about it. It’s not an attack on you, right? Talking about Black history shouldn’t automatically be assumed as a negation of other parts of American history, right? So that’s in the mix.
Many people didn’t even know that the banjo was a Black instrument, even within old-time music circles. Now, that fact is more widely known, which changes people’s perspectives.
I mean, for Christ’s sake, listen to “Texas Hold ‘Em” on Beyonce’s new album – the first thing you hear is Rhiannon Giddens, a Black woman, playing a minstrel banjo. So there’s something different about the world, just in how we think about our music and our approach to it.
And the last thing I’ll say about it is there is a man named John Cohen [now deceased] who was in an old-time band called New Lost City Ramblers. John Cohen was someone I got to spend a lot of time with and one of the last couple of times I saw him; he said, “Hubby, you got to do this. Like, you didn’t mention the banjo being a Black instrument once today. Here’s an invisible contract: I want you to go out and do that.” And as an elder person who I have much respect for, I took that to heart.
I see that you have about a dozen dates on your tour calendar, some in the Northeast, but also in Arkansas and out in Oregon. In addition to touring, what else keeps you busy?
I’m doing these teaching weeks, which has been and interesting thing to do, and it becomes like a reunion kind of thing. That and life and family keep me busy. All these other projects I mentioned earlier are gestating.
What do you do when you’re not making music? I read that you love Star Trek?
Oh yes, I love Star Trek very, very much. It’s my favorite show, Deep Space Nine – Black Captain, right? I’ve actually gotten my partner into Star Trek. Now she’s watching Deep Space Nine. I was in love with her before, but now I feel like it’s really real [Hubby laughs].
I love to roller skate. I’m an avid roller skater, and they just opened a rink in Brooklyn that is a 15-minute bike ride from my house, so that’s amazing.
I’m also a tabletop role-play nerd. I like to cook Sichuan Chinese food. I like video games, sometimes. I’m working on my poetry writing and reading Stephen Fry’s book, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within.
Is there anything else that I did not ask you that you would like to share with our readers in advance of your performance on September 5 at Race Brook Lodge?
Just that I hope people will come out and see the show!
You can learn more about Hubby at https://www.hubbyjenkins.com. You can follow him on Instagram and find his music on major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
— Mark @ Music in the Berkshires