The Carolina Chocolate Drops, fresh off their Newport Folk Festival performance this past weekend (which can be heard at npr.org), are set to open for one of the more memorable performers in Newport Folk Festival history—Bob Dylan—at the Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio, this Friday. Following headlining shows of their own from coast to coast in the coming weeks, the Chocolate Drops return to their home state of North Carolina to perform at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh on August 27.

In honor of their local gig, Carolina Chocolate Drops have decided to host a special eBay auction, featuring an autographed Deering Goodtime banjo from the band, to benefit one of their favorite organizations, the Center for the Study of the American South.

All proceeds from this auction will go to the Center for the Study of the American South, a research center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This center is a leading institution for original research, teaching, and public dialogue on the history, culture, and contemporary experience of the American South.

The funds raised as part of this auction will go towards the center's music programming, which include a series of concerts called Music on the Porch as well as the annual music issue of Southern Cultures. A portion will also go towards the costs of administering our Sounds of the South Undergraduate Research Award.

Head to ebay.com to place your bids, now through August 13, for the chance to take home the banjo signed by the Carolina Chocolate Drops and support the Center for the Study of the American South.

To find out where the Chocolate Drops are playing, go to nonesuch.com/on-tour. To pick up a copy of their recent EP with Luminescent Orchestrii and their Grammy-winning Nonesuch debut album, Genuine Negro Jig, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD and vinyl orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the music at checkout.