They’ll be no “shush-ing” in the library Friday evening. In its place, singing and dancing should bode well.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are dropping into the Austin Public Library with their banjo, fiddle, snare drum, bone percussion and kazoo for a free concert at 7 p.m.

Based in North Carolina, the three-piece band has been recognized as leading the revival and reinvention of African-American string-band music.

The group plays a short concert in Austin, before a full-length Saturday night show at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester. They make their way to the region via a Southern Minnesota Arts Council grant aimed at bringing interesting music to smaller, often rural communities.

“We’re so excited to have these excellent musicians come to Austin,” Ann Hokanson, director of Austin’s library said. “It’s a type of music that people would not otherwise find here.”

The Carolina Chocolate Drops honed their musical talent with help from octogenarian fiddler Joe Thompson, a North Carolinian believed be the last black traditional string band player.

Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson were his students, and the three decided to form a band in 2005, largely as a tribute to Thompson.

The trio went from coaxing their tutor out of his house to join them on North Carolina stages to going off on their own to play on stages in Europe. They have since been profiled in Rolling Stone, appeared in the 2007 film “The Great Debators” featuring Denzel Washington, joined Garrison Keiler on Prairie Home Companion — and are now visiting Austin for a concert in brief.

There will be refreshments and a chance to meet the band following the one-hour concert, Hokanson said.

“It’s going to be really great to have something like this to do, right here in town on a Friday night,” she said.

This concert is also sponsored by the Austin Public Library and the Friends of the Austin Public Library.

For more information on The Carolina Chocolate Drops, go to www.carolinachocolatedrops.com.

Carolina Chocolate Drops concert

When: Friday, March 5 at 7 p.m.

Where: Austin Public Library

323 Fourth Ave. NE

Free admission