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Though he first came to prominence in as a member of Grammy-winning string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, since leaving that Durham-based group, Dom Flemons has carved out a richly rewarding musical identity of his own. Known as the \u201cAmerican Songster\u201d (the title of his second solo album), multi-instrumentalist Flemons has earned an important place in music both for his songwriting and his celebration of American folk music culture and history.<\/p>\n
Across six albums, Flemons has surveyed the landscape of American folk music, bringing to each project the perspective of both musician and folklorist. His 2018 album Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys<\/i> was made with the cooperation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In recognition of Flemons\u2019 deep interest in preserving old forms of music and bring to light forgotten and\/or untold stories from the American experience, Black Cowboys<\/i> earned him a Grammy nomination (Best Folk Album). The release was also named Best Acoustic Album at the 2019 Blues Music Awards.<\/p>\n
And while varied, Flemons\u2019 work has a unified character; that\u2019s by design. \u201cWhen I first began to think of myself as a professional musician, I tried to be as consistent as I could be,\u201d he says. But he has also made a point to avoid limiting himself. As a result, he says, \u201cI have also found myself in quite a few different musical situations where I’ve been asked to lend a hand or [be] the ringleader of it all.\u201d <\/p>\n
Even though Flemons is an accomplished songwriter, his mission to preserve the work of his musical forbears is at the center of what he does. \u201cWhen it comes to my recording career,\u201d he explains, \u201cI’ve tried to do a combination of [original songwriting] and creating awareness for songs that are less known. I try to get a lot of those old-time numbers that people haven’t heard, and interpret them in my own ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he balances his archivist role \u2013 one that puts him in the company of celebrated folklorists like Alan Lomax \u2013 with his work as a songwriter. \u201cI\u2019m constantly thinking about the past, present and future,\u201d he says. And though he acknowledges a kinship with Lomax, who made countless field recordings that preserved American folk music of the early 20th<\/sup> century, Flemons thinks of what he does as subtly different. <\/p>\n \u201cAs someone who’s come of age in this special period of time, I try to move the peg forward on some of the narratives and stories from the past,\u201d Flemons says. \u201cBecause some of them, I think, have been lost in translation.\u201d He explains that the potential disconnect is in part the result in changes to the English language and the terminologies used. \u201cAlso,\u201d he says, \u201csome of the younger [listeners] are coming from a different perspective.\u201d <\/p>\n But for Flemons, present-day music and the musical traditions of the past really do fit together. \u201cI find that I am connecting the threads on some of the different folkloric stories that have been passed down,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been learning along the way as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Flemons\u2019 Black Cowboys<\/i> album shines a light on the African American cowboys of the American west in the post-Civil War period. That history is rich with fascinating characters like Bass Reeves. \u201cHe was born on the plantation,\u201d Flemons notes. \u201cBut through his circumstances, he eventually moved on to Cherokee land, and then that eventually led him to be a Deputy Marshal of the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n Stories such as those take us on a journey. \u201cAnd what makes it so interesting,\u201d Flemons enthuses, \u201cis that instead of this being action-adventure [fiction] like most Westerns, these were real people!\u201d Works like Black Cowboys<\/i> bring these characters back to life, rescuing their stories from obscurity and preserving them for future generations. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing to be able to share that with a much broader public,\u201d Flemons says. But his music entertains as much as it instructs. \u201cI didn’t try to speak down to people with the story of Black Cowboys<\/i>,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cI just wanted to show them that if they just shifted the lens ever so slightly, they could see that Black cowboys are a part of our everyday American [history].\u201d<\/p>\n And Flemons is quick to point out that other artists make connections between American folk music of the past and the music of today as well. Citing Jennifer Lopez\u2019s recent performance of Woody Guthrie\u2019s \u201cThis Land is Your Land\u201d at Joe Biden\u2019s presidential inauguration in January, he says, \u201cAny sort of interpretation begins to have its own effect.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Though he first came to prominence in as a member of Grammy-winning string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, since leaving that Durham-based group, Dom Flemons has carved out a richly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,30,41],"tags":[3889],"class_list":["post-21043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-folk","category-interview","tag-dom-flemons","cat-6-id","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21045,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21043\/revisions\/21045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}