A little before the end of the last century, a revelatory compilation appeared, seemingly from nowhere. From Where I Stand: The Black Experience In Country Music opened a window on something so many didn’t even know existed to show that country music had never been a white preserve. That album was a few years before the Carolina Chocolate Drops burst on the scene, reclaiming the Black heritage in country and string band music, plus a great deal more. Genuine Negro Jig, their third release, saw them move up to the prestigious Nonesuch label, a powerful artistic imprimatur, winning them a Grammy for an album very far removed from the mainstream.

This expanded 15th anniversary edition marks a good time to look back at the band’s mix of Piedmont string band and traditional music, nestling beside early 20th century blues, and a few original and modern pieces in the mix (like the Tom Waits-penned “Trampled Rose”). The trio roared into the music, playing it with fire and unalloyed joy – yet also with plenty of subtlety; list to “Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)” for a taste of how the members worked together.

For many, this would have been the first opportunity to hear Rhiannon Giddens – quite a big global star these days – and Don Flemons, as well as Sule Greg Wilson, standard bears for an idea whose time had come.

This is an album very much worth of this deluxe reissue treatment, a real landmark, not simply for the career of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but for roots music in general. And people responded – hence that Grammy.

There are plenty of bonus tracks here, all worth hearing, but the real meat is on the original release. There’s the delicious, sultry blues of “Why Don’t You Do Right?”, the wild string band abandon of “Cindy Gal,” Giddens’s unaccompanied voice on “Reynardine,” and the full-tilt race through “Sandy Boys.” It’s exhilarating, but so much more. There’s deep thought given to the arrangements and the interplay between instruments and voices.

The band aren’t purists. They don’t need to be. Whatever the sources for the material, they transform it and turn it into something that speaks with their voice. Released a decade after From Where I Stand, Genuine Negro Jig was a bold manifesto that still speaks loudly today. It is an album very much worth of this deluxe reissue, waiting for a new audience to discover.