SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2021
VOLUME TEN NUMBER ONE
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
JEREMY PELT
(April 17-23)
WILLIAM GRANT STILL
(April 24-30)
AMINA CLAUDINE MYERS
(May 1-7)
KARRIEM RIGGINS
(May 8-14)
ETTA JONES
(May 15-21)
YUSEF LATEEF
(May 22-28)
CHRISTIAN SANDS
(May 29—June 4)
E. J. STRICKLAND
(June 5-11)
TAJ MAHAL
(June 12-18)
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR PERKINSON
(June 19-25)
DOM FLEMONS
(June 26-July 2)
CAMILLE THURMAN
(July 3-July 9)
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dom-flemons-mn0000578398/biography
Dom Flemons
(b. August 30, 1982)
Artist Biography by Matt Collar
A rootsy singer/songwriter with a bent toward Americana, folk, banjo, blues, and jug band music, Dom Flemons first came to the public's attention in the late 2000s as a member of the Grammy-winning old-timey string ensemble the Carolina Chocolate Drops. He began his solo career while still a member of the group, carving out a reputation as the "American Songster" -- which was also the name of his 2008 solo album -- and developing a focus on historic American folk styles which often utilized arcane instrumentation like the bones, quills, and pan pipes. After leaving the Chocolate Drops in 2012, Flemons doubled down on his solo work, touring frequently and releasing well-researched albums like 2014's Prospect Hill and his 2018 exploration on African American pioneers of the American West, Black Cowboys.
A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Flemons grew up listening to his parents' vintage R&B collection. A gifted guitarist and harmonica player by his teens, he quickly expanded his musical boundaries, listening to artists like Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Chuck Berry, as well as seeking out such early progenitors of American roots music as Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, and Jack Elliott. After high school, Flemons attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where he played locally, often busking on the street. It was while in Flagstaff that he came into contact with veteran percussionist, banjo player, and folklorist Sule Greg Wilson, a local musical oracle who had played with everyone from famed Nigerian percussionist Babatunde Olatunji to such legendary Piedmont blues artists as fiddler Joe Thompson and guitarist/vocalist Algia Mae Hinton. Wilson became a mentor to Flemons and helped him develop his playing and historical understanding of blues and folk music.
In 2005, at Wilson's behest, Flemons attended the Black Banjo Gathering, a four-day festival celebrating the African, Afro-Caribbean, and African-American origins of banjo music. During the gathering, Flemons befriended fellow roots music enthusiasts vocalist/banjo player Rhiannon Giddens and vocalist/violinist Justin Robinson. Inspired by their festival experiences, the trio formed the Carolina Chocolate Drops and released several highly acclaimed albums including 2006's Dona Got a Ramblin' Mind, 2010's Genuine Negro Jig, and 2012's Leaving Eden, among others. As a solo artist, Flemons continued to perform and record, debuting in 2007 with Dance Tunes Ballads & Blues. In addition to producing a number of other artists, he also released a collaborative album with guitarist Boo Hanks called Buffalo Junction. After amicably parting ways with the Carolina Chocolate Drops in 2012, Flemons refocused on his solo work, releasing the album Prospect Hill on Fat Possum in 2014. The next couple of years saw him building his reputation as popular touring act, landing prestigious gigs at Carnegie Hall as part of a Lead Belly tribute and at the opening ceremonies for the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. In 2016, Flemons joined legendary British guitarist Martin Simpson on the album Selection of Ever Popular Favourites. His 2018 album, Black Cowboys, was released as part of Smithsonian Folkways' African-American Legacy Recordings series and unearthed material pertaining to African Americans' role as pioneers of the West. 2020 saw an expanded reissue of Flemons' Prospect Hill album that included the rare What Got Over EP and a selection of instrumentals.
https://www.thecountryblues.com/artist-reviews/dom-flemons/
Dom Flemons
If anyone believes that traditional, roots & blues music is on the wane in America, rejoice and meet Dom Flemons, the truehearted, freewheeling, multi-instrumentalist, folklorist, self-taught musicologist and modern day “American Songster.” As much a scholar as a performer, he came to prominence with the now famous ensemble of young troubadours, the Grammy award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, of which he was a founding member along with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson. They won a GRAMMY for the 2011 album “Genuine Negro Jig” and were nominated for “Leaving Eden”, in 2012.
Now on a solo track, the renaissance-man’s recent successes have included a feature on the American National Public Radio (NPR), performing at the Newport Folk Festival; and, most importantly, making folk music relevant to young people in the 21St Century. He’s been out the gate as a professional only since 2005, still a relative rookie, with huge acclaim and a long musical career ahead of him.
Some blues purists have noted that he is really a “folkie” because he plays old time folk, jug band, black string band and mountain music, and black banjo music from Appalachia. Because he carries on the obscure black string band precursors to the blues and does not necessarily repeat the same old 12 bar blues songs, they don’t get him. Some folkies have conversely noted that he’s really a blueser, because he is reminiscent of the rural African American traditions that are often outside of the predominately white “Folk” traditions, not as in folk music, but as in the marketing term coined in the folk revival of the 1960s. His answer to that is “Let it stay in the vaults if you can’t improve upon it.”
He doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He will either lead you there or leave you behind. He will unabashedly delve into it all with gusto– blues, jug band, songster, jazz…with the boundless understanding that it all belongs and fits together. It’s all interconnected. He understands the universality of music without external boundaries, and more than almost anyone today, he traces back African American music clear back to the root of field hollers, Negro spirituals and jigs.
Therein lies the beauty! This is American music at its best. Flemons is a proud young musicianer of African American and Mexican heritage, who approaches traditions with great respect, but who has emancipated himself from all the externally imposed delineations and limitations. Flemons unapologetically ignores conventions and he has freed himself to go his own way musically, adventurously and confidently . “I want to experiment rather than to merely replicate. It can never be as good as the original, so I make the music fit my own style. I look at the old time music, the originals of black banjo music for the Carolinas, the fiddle and the sounds of folks like Syd Hemphill, Henry Thomas and Pegleg Howell. I let this music inform me. It matters today. I want to remember it, to be referential to the origins but be inventive. I respect it. This is music with energy, the same type of energy that rock and roll and punk has. People are willing to throw the old stuff away. If you play this music and you do anything but amazing things with it, the audience will call it “quaint”. I try to make good sounding music. That’s all.”
He’s made the world circuit, played at Bonnaroo and the Grand Ole Opry. He’s been all over Europe and he’s just getting started. By now, he’s one of the foremost advocates of traditional music, mostly in the black traditions. His blues draws from Popa Charlie Jackson and Hendrix, from Lightning Hopkins, Rev. Gary Davis, Josh White, Jim Jackson, Ma Rainey and Gus Gannon… but just saying that itself is irrelevant. This musician has absorbed everything he’s ever heard, internalized and processed it somewhere in his vast musical cranium. He is a walking embodiment of musicology delivered in song.
Flemons hails from Phoenix, Arizona. His musical journey included playing percussion in his high school band. Like many musicians, he picked up the guitar and harmonica as a teenager, and played locally in coffee houses; and, he became a regular performer on the Arizona music scene as songwriter, performer, producer and slam poet. This aspect of the artist is an essential aspect of his musical being. He’s not only a deep musicologist, but a powerful lyricist and an extremely intelligent, articulate and eloquent orator. An English major at Northern Arizona University, he performed in two national poetry slams in 2002 and 2003. (See this reference to learn more about this vibrant poetry form
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/brief-guide-slam-poetry.
Flemons, stylish in his retro-chic garb, also understood that the 1960s era folk-revival musicians like Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan and Mike Seeger carried on the old traditions and he learned all he could from them. He also internalized all of the blues greats, such as Mississippi John Hurt, Howlin’ Wolf, Alvin Youngblood Hart, along with the country based roots and rockabilly players like Hank Williams, Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins.
Flemons’ foremost instrument is the banjo, an instrument of African American heritage that takes its roots back to West Africa. As one of the true heirs of the African American banjoists, he plays multiple styles including his own devised from having studied the origins of the banjo clear back to slavery days. He is an expert at North Carolina black banjo traditions, clawhammer, tenor and three-finger styles of playing. Mike Seeger, one of the greatest musicologists of the banjo, had a profound influence on him. “Mike Seeger knew and understood the early black string band music and the wide range of banjo styles. He helped me merge traditional music while maintaining my own integrity.” Flemons plays a Deering 4 string banjo, a Gibson GB-1 6-string and a very rare and special, huge 1920s era Clef Club banjo.
Dom Flemons just released his third recording with the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Prospect Hill. Check it out.
The bard confidently told the countryblues.com “I am an impressionist”, and no writer could find a better descriptive of the young renaissance man. Flemons is passionate, witty and musically playful. This guy has a burning desire to take traditional music into the future, with limitless creative and a strong-willed intellectual point of view. This combination makes him one of the most important and powerful young artists in America today. Keep your eyes and ears on the young genius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_Flemons
Dom Flemons
Dominique Flemons (born August 30, 1982) is an American old-time music, Piedmont blues, and neotraditional country multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. He is a proficient player of the banjo, fife, guitar, harmonica, percussion, quills, and rhythm bones.[1] He is known as "The American Songster" as his repertoire of music spans nearly a century of American folklore, ballads, and tunes.[2] He has performed with Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, Guy Davis, and The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.[1]
A member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops from their inception in 2005 until 2013, Flemons has released five albums in his own name, although two of those were collaborations with other musicians. Flemons appreciates the tradition inherent in his solo work and once stated, "I want to experiment rather than to merely replicate. It can never be as good as the original, so I make the music fit my own style. I look at the old time music, the originals of black banjo music for the Carolinas, the fiddle and the sounds of folks like Sid Hemphill, Henry Thomas and Peg Leg Howell."[3]
His latest album, Black Cowboys (2018), was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards,[4] and for a Blues Music Award at the 40th Blues Music Award ceremony in the 'Acoustic Album' category.[5]
Biography
Early life
Flemons was born in Phoenix, Arizona, United States.[6] He is of African American and Mexican heritage. He played percussion in his high school band, and whilst a teenager played guitar and harmonica in local coffee houses.[3] He grew up listening to his parents record collection, and expanded his knowledge by studying recordings by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Chuck Berry. This led him to the pioneers of American folk music, including Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton, and Ramblin' Jack Elliott.[7] Flemons became a frequent busker and performer on the Arizona music scene. He obtained a major in English at Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff, Arizona, and partook in two national poetry slams in 2002 and 2003.[3] In Flagstaff, Flemons met Sule Greg Wilson, a local percussionist, banjo player, and folklorist. Wilson became a mentor to Flemons assisting his playing techniques and understanding of the history of the blues and American folk music.[7]
Carolina Chocolate Drops
The Carolina Chocolate Drops is an old-time string band from Durham, North Carolina. Their 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.[8]
Formed in November 2005, following the members' attendance at the first Black Banjo Gathering, held in Boone, North Carolina, in April 2005, the group grew out of the success of Sankofa Strings, an ensemble that featured Dom Flemons on bones, jug, guitar, and four-string banjo, Rhiannon Giddens on banjo and fiddle and Súle Greg Wilson on bodhrán, brushes, washboard, bones, tambourine, banjo, banjolin, and ukulele, with Justin Robinson as an occasional guest artist.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops released five albums including 2012's Leaving Eden, and one EP, whilst Flemons was a member, and opened for Taj Mahal and, in 2011, Bob Dylan.[9] They performed on Mountain Stage,[10] MerleFest, and at the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention. Additionally they have performed on A Prairie Home Companion, Fresh Air, and BBC Radio in early 2010, and at the 2010 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee,[11] and at the 2011 Romp,[12] in Owensboro, Kentucky. On January 17, 2012 they appeared live on BBC Radio 3.[13] They performed on the Grand Ole Opry several times. They also appeared on the UK's BBC Television program, Later... with Jools Holland.[14]
On November 12, 2013, the Chocolate Drops announced that Flemons would be leaving to continue his own solo career.[15]
Solo career
Flemons solo career began while he was still a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. He self-released his debut solo album in 2007, Dance Tunes Ballads & Blues.[7] His next album was issued the following year. American Songster was Flemons first release on Music Maker.[6] He was then featured on NPR performing at the Newport Folk Festival.[3] Over the past decade Flemons has performed as a soloist at venues such as, Carnegie Hall as part of a Lead Belly tribute; Cecil Sharp House; the Grand Ole Opry; at the opening ceremonies for the National Museum of African American History and Culture; at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering; and represented the United States at the 2017 Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Malaysia.[16]
In 2014, Prospect Hill saw Flemons enlist other musicians on his recording. These included Ron Brendle (bass), Guy Davis (banjo, harmonica, percussion and backing vocals), Keith Ganz (banjo and guitar), Brian Horton (clarinet, saxophone), Ben Hunter (drums, fiddle, backing vocals), Pura Fé (backing vocals), Joe Seamons (backing vocals) and Kobie Watkins (drums).[17] The album saw releases on both the Fat Possum and Music Maker labels.[18] The album received national press coverage.[6] Prospect Hill contained seven of Flemon's own penned tracks out of a total of fourteen on the collection.[19] Flemons was then a member of Music Maker Relief Foundation's Next Generation Artists program, and served on Music Maker's board of directors. He continues to discover young talent for the Foundation to assist and has promoted, recorded, and performed with more mature Music Maker artists including John Dee Holeman, Boo Hanks, Captain Luke, and Macavine Hayes.[6]
His next album required Flemons to undertake some research work, and thus become a scholar, old record collector and part historian.[1] The project entailed depicting the story of African Americans who helped to shape the American West, and the tunes they were familiar with.[20] They included "Home on the Range", which the field recorder and musicologist John Lomax recorded from a black cook in San Antonio. Equally "Goodbye Old Paint" was first recorded by Lomax as performed by a white fiddler, but Flemons discovered that "... another musician talked about how he learned the song from an ex-slave who worked for his father on the ranch." That has been credited as the black cowboy and former slave, Charley Willis. Thus the songs and poems that were used in the ensuing album depicted a century old story, following the footsteps of thousands of African American pioneers.[21] The individuals unearthed included Nat Love and Bass Reeves, the latter being the first black Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi, who some believe was the model for the Lone Ranger. Flemons duly wrote a song about the leading black movie cowboy of his time, Bill Pickett, and used other stories including cowboys who became Pullman porters and, in turn, became important figures in the civil rights movement. Black Cowboys (2018) was issued as part of the African American Legacy Recordings series issued in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Flemons played old musical instruments such as the six-string banjo and the quills, as was originally used by Henry Thomas.[20]
In 2017, Flemons was featured on David Holt's State of Music on PBS. He also performed as the bluesman Joe Hill Louis on CMT's television program Sun Records. Flemons launched a podcast, American Songster Radio, on WUNC National Public Radio and issued a couple of instructional DVD's via Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop.[22]
Collaborations
In 2012, Flemons collaborated to record an album with the Piedmont blues guitarist and singer Boo Hanks, entitled Buffalo Junction.[7] Four years later, Flemons played alongside with the British guitarist Martin Simpson, to jointly record the album, A Selection of Ever Popular Favourites.[7] It was released on Fledg'ling Records.[23]
Musical instruments
Flemons' foremost instrument is the banjo, with Mike Seeger having had an influence on Flemons playing style. Flemons plays a Deering 4-string banjo, a Gibson GB-1 6-string and a rare, oversized 1920s era Clef Club banjo.[3]
Recent times
As at 2019, Flemons lived in the Washington, D.C. area.[2]
Accolades and awards
The Boston Globe commented that "most folk artists go by "singer-songwriter" or simply "musician." But "American songster" speaks to a greater truth about the work Flemons, a multi-instrumentalist, has accomplished as a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and now..., as a solo artist."[24]
Flemons won a Grammy Award as part of the Carolina Chocolate Drops for their album, Genuine Negro Jig. His latest solo album, Black Cowboys (2018), was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album and for a 2019 Blues Music Award in the 'Acoustic Album' category.
Discography
Albums
| Year | Title | Collaboration | Record label |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Dance Tunes Ballads & Blues | CD Baby | |
| 2008 | American Songster | Music Maker | |
| 2012 | Buffalo Juncton | with Boo Hanks | Music Maker |
| 2014 | Prospect Hill | Fat Possum Records / Music Maker | |
| 2016 | A Selection of Ever Popular Favourites | with Martin Simpson | Fledg'ling Records |
| 2018 | Black Cowboys | Smithsonian Folkways |
Singles
Year A-side B-side Record label
2019 "Long Journey Home" & "There's A Brown Skinned Girl Down The Road" "Po' Black Sheep" Need to Know
[25]
Selected other recordings
- 2008: Heritage : Carolina Chocolate Drops :4-String Banjo, Clappers, Drums (Snare), Jug, Percussion, Vocals
- 2009: Carolina Chocolate Drops & Joe Thompson :Carolina Chocolate Drops / Joe Thompson :Vocals, Guitar, Jug
- 2009: All the Pretty Horses : The Elftones / Rhiannon Giddens :Banjo, Harmonica
- 2009: Drunken Barrel House Blues : Eden and John's East River String Band :Guest Artist, Dancer, Guitar, Harmonica, Jug, Quills, Vocals
- 2010: Genuine Negro Jig : Carolina Chocolate Drops :4-String Banjo, arranger, composer, Drums (Bass), Foot Percussion, Guitar, Jug, Throat Singing, Vocals
- 2010: Carolina Chocolate Drops/Luminescent Orchestrii (EP) : Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestrii :4-String Banjo, composer, Handclapping, lyricist, Vocals
- 2011: Be Kind to a Man When He's Down : Eden and John's East River String Band :Guest Artist
- 2012: Voice of Ages : The Chieftains :Arranger, Quills
- 2012: Leaving Eden : Carolina Chocolate Drops :4-String Banjo, arranger, composer, Drums (Bass), Drums (Snare), Guitar, Jug, Quills, Vocals
- 2013: Celebrates 50 Years of Music : Tom Rush :Banjo, composer, Guitar (Acoustic), Harmonica, Pan Pipes, Vocal Harmony, Vocals
- 2014: Haven't Got the Blues (Yet) : Loudon Wainwright III :Harmonica, Jug
- 2015: American Originals : Cincinnati Pops Orchestra / John Morris Russell :Banjo, Harmonia, Percussion, Vocals[26]
External links
- Flemons discography at Discogs.com
- Dom Flemons Papers, Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/06/22/arizona-musician-dom-flemons-american-songster/7771618002/
How 'Black Cowboys' helped Grammy-winning songster Dom Flemons reclaim his Arizona roots
June 22, 2021
Arizona Republic
Dom Flemons' fascination with tracing the roots of American music through the early days of rock 'n roll to the folk traditions that continue to inform so much of what he does is part of how he came to buy his first guitar at Ziggie's Music as a Phoenix teen.
"I'd heard the story that Duane Eddy had gotten his guitar he used on 'Rebel Rouser' at Ziggie's as well, way back," he said. "And I was always kind of an early rock and roll kid. Until I got into folk music."
Getting deeper still into folk music is what eventually led him to leave Arizona for North Carolina, where he formed an old-time string band called the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Their "Genuine Negro Jig" won a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2011.
Two years later, Flemons left the Chocolate Drops to focus on the solo music he'd been doing all along and earned another Grammy nomination six years later for "Black Cowboys."
Flemons will perform in his hometown at 7 p.m., Saturday, June 26, at the Musical Instrument Museum's Music Theater.
The Story behind Flemons' 'Black Cowboys'
"I wanted to bring back all the different musical influences that I had picked up along the way, in my travels, while in some ways reclaiming my roots in Arizona," Flemons said. "So I put together an album called 'Black Cowboys' for Smithsonian Folkways. I had started to read about the history of Black cowboys, and it started this idea in motion."
Flemons had some first-hand knowledge of Black cowboys, having spent a large part of his life in Arizona.
"With my father being from Flagstaff, there was always a sense of rural African-American culture and the cowboys and working people that had migrated from other places," Flemons said.
"But I didn't necessarily think of Black cowboys as a prominent feature of the settlement of the West in the way that I would find when I was first exposed to the idea at Painted Desert National Park. One year, I was traveling back out west to visit my family. And I found a book called 'The Negro Cowboys.'"
A dad and daughter as bandmates:How the Exbats came to be
The Black cowboy tradition in the West
That's where Flemons learned that one in four cowboys that settled the West and were part of those early cattle trails were African American.
"So the book sort of opened up this idea of Black cowboys and sort of the first interactions of African people on the North American continent," said Flemons.
In the process of putting the album together, he ended up reading the autobiography of a Black cowboy named Nat Love, who spent part of his cowboy years in Holbrook, Arizona, which has a particular connection to his family.
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/324718/dom-flemons-profile/
Dom Flemons Is Rewriting the American Songbook
When the Carolina Chocolate Drops formed in 2005, most people didn’t really associate old-time string band music with African-American culture. But over the better part of the last decade, the group introduced audiences around the world to that aspect of American roots music.
By 2013, Dom Flemons, one of Carolina Chocolate Drops’ founding members, had accomplished all that he wanted with the group and decided to part ways. He was at a creative crossroads.
“If you’ve got a band and a group name, then people can cling to that. If you’re just an individual, that’s a little trickier,” Flemons recalls. “For me, I had to figure out how I could create an idea that was going to be bigger than just myself as an individual.”
The concept Flemons arrived at was that of “The American Songster.” Songster, as Flemons describes it, is a term that predates genre labels like “blues” and “country,” which are often used as categories within American roots music. The word refers to performers who played music of different varieties that eventually developed into the forms that exist today.
http://www.thecountryblues.com/artist-reviews/the-carolina-chocolate-drops/
Carolina Chocolate Drops
Publisher’s Note: Dom Flemons has left the Carolina Chocolate drops and is now working as a solo artist. Check out his new profile here .
An unexpected sensation and a surprising wind in the sails of the Country Blues! Just at a time when everybody expected the genre to wither, wane and fade away, this band proves that once people get a chance to hear the old time blues and African-American roots music, the response is amazing.
Who woulda thunk it?
Sometimes things happen in the bizarre world that is the music business in the 21st Century. We had a bluegrass movie soundtrack “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” catapult Appalachian bluegrass music by Alison Krauss & Dan Tyminski into a best seller, certified eight times platinum with 8 million copies sold in the United States. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002, the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for Dan Tyminski who sang “Man of Constant Sorrow”, an Appalachian traditional gospel song.
Known for their exuberant showmanship, broad roots repertoire and mountain harmonies, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, from Durham North Carolina, are almost that equivalent for African-American roots and traditional fiddle and banjo music. They are famous at a time when it is virtually unthinkable, in the conventional sense, that such an act could prosper, but let it shine. They just had a song “Daughter’s Lament” on the soundtrack of the Hunger Games. They are signed to a major label, Nonesuch Records, one of today’s premier big record companies, with label mate luminaries such as Ry Cooder, Bill Frissell, Dr.John, Pat Metheny, the Black Keys, Randy Newman and a virtual assortment of today’s biggest names in music. Their debut album “Genuine Negro Jig” won them a Grammy. They now play the biggest concert halls and the best festivals. They are famous international stars. How can it be? Not only that, they are young black people playing what is perceived to be unpopular, archaic country blues, African-American string band music from the turn of the Century– the 19th Century to the 20th that is. They are so “uncool” by all conventional standards that it boggles the mind, yet they are as hip as it gets .
Jug band, fife-and-drum and African-American Songster music is the last thing you expected, but there we go, they proved everybody wrong. The new-minstrel, current version of the band consists of the quartet featuring multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemmons on 4-string banjo, guitar, jug, harmonica, kazoo, snare drum, bones, quills; the hot and wild Rhinnon Giddens (who critic Randall Roberts aptly referred to as “ singer, stringed-instrument player, dancer and all-around show-stopper”) on 5-string banjo, fiddle, kazoo; Adam Matta on Beatbox and tambourine; and, Hubby Jenkins on guitar, mandolin, 5-string banjo, guitar, and bone. The enthusiastic and energetic band is a hearty throwback to days of old, real authentic American roots music, digging deep into Appalachian and Southern string music. The repertoire reflects a virtual excursion through the music of the great Depression era. These talented young musicians are as much musicologists as musicians, historians of the great American cultural heritage that was once such an important aspect of African-American culture. Yet, as anyone who knows will attest, these are songs that transcend ethnicity. While black and white society was segregated by Jim Crow, the musicians have always broken the racial barrier. These songs were dear to everyone and sung by everyone, no matter which side of the track they originated from.
This is great African-American music, and it is just plain great American music. Nonetheless, they will be a hard sell in the contemporary African-American community, where interest in the blues and traditional music is quite low, and where the Carolina Chocolate Drops, with their 1930s act and personas, complete with the retro-garb, bib-overalls, and hokum, will seem a bit odd. The black community may have forsaken this music, but the international audience loves it. People into American folk, blues, Songster music of the 1920-30s, are dancing on the table from joy. You get rousing gospel, mountain music, string band and fiddle music, banjo and minstrel music, Piedmont blues, Carolina folk music and more.
Listen a little and you will hear the best of the old time roots musicians come through loud and clear: Sleepy John Estes, Roscoe Holcomb, Joe Thompson, Hazel Dickens, Etta Baker…on and on. It’s all that and loads of fun and truly a joy. They are making it on all the charts: bluegrass, folk, and blues, and , young as they are, they are just getting started and the best is yet to come…
https://folkways.si.edu/artists/dom-flemons
Dom Flemons, American Songster®
Black Cowboys is the new album from multi-instrumentalist, songster, and co-founding member of the GRAMMY Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dom Flemons. More than a collection of songs from the “Wild West,” the record sheds light on the prominent but often overlooked role African American pioneers played in westward expansion.
The first album of its kind, Black Cowboys takes the listener on an illuminating journey “from the trails to the rails” of the Old West. The 18-song set traverses a varied soundscape featuring string blues, old-time square dance music, and cowboy poetry. Flemons is joined by a celebrated group of backing musicians throughout the record, such as GRAMMY-winning bluesman Alvin “Youngblood” Hart, Jimbo Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers), and decorated folklorist and Folkways’ director emeritus Dan Sheehy, who co-produced the album.
From the first, plaintive line sung on the album opener, a field holler called “Black Woman,” it’s clear that Flemons’ relationship with this material runs deep. Indeed, in 2016, Flemons himself followed the westward path taken by Lewis and Clark and their slave, York, “crossing every original cattle trail and Indian trading post along the way.”
In addition to the album’s re-worked traditional songs, Flemons includes original songs written specifically for the occasion. “One Dollar Bill” reflects on the portrayal of black cowboys in Hollywood Westerns, “He’s a Lone Ranger” tells the story of Bass Reeves (an escaped slave who became the first African American Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi), and “Steel Pony Blues” pays tribute to Nat Love, the former slave turned Pullman porter who spent time as a rancher in Flemons’ native state of Arizona.
Flemons is also a historian, music scholar, and collector. He has long carried a torch of awareness that many traditional American songs and tunes in fact originated from, or were influenced by, the musical and storytelling traditions of African Americans and Native Americans. Flemons illustrates the complex cultural exchange that happened on the frontier in the 40-page liner notes booklet, reminding us that the American West was a much more diverse environment than old Western films and dime novels would have us believe. On his rendition of “Home on the Range,” arguably one of the most celebrated Western songs of all time, Flemons explains that the popularized version came from a variant recorded in 1908, sung by a black bartender in San Antonio.
Flemons’ love of cowboy songs and history traces back to his manifold familial connections to the region in which he was born and raised. His grandfather worked as a preacher and sawmill laborer in the same Arizona town Nat Love called home, and after emigrating from Mexico, his maternal ancestors became civil rights leaders in Arizona. A decade ago, after serendipitously coming across the book The Negro Cowboys on a road trip from North Carolina to Phoenix, Flemons began immersing himself in research and interviews on the subject. After his first experience at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in February 2016, he was inspired to bring his passion for this material into the studio, and began recording Black Cowboys two months later.
Though extensively researched and likely educational for many listeners, Black Cowboys is much more than a history lesson. It’s a collection both plaintive and upbeat, which evokes the familiar nostalgia for the Old West without sacrificing the truth of the matter. With this recording, Flemons further solidifies his place at the contemporary forefront of the American song tradition, and presents an innovative blend of traditional forms with a modern sensibility for the 21st century.
https://www.passim.org/live-music/events/dom-flemons/
Dom Flemons
- Folk
- Roots
- Trad
Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He is known as “The American Songster” since his repertoire of music covers nearly 100 years of American folklore, ballads, and tunes.
Flemons is a music scholar, historian, record collector and a multi-instrumentalist. He is considered an expert player on the Banjo, Fife, Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion, Quills, and Rhythm Bones. He has performed with leading musicians, such as, Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Guy Davis. He has been a professional touring musician for the past ten years and has traveled around the nation and the world presenting traditional folk and roots music to diverse audiences. Flemons has performed as a soloist at prestigious venues, such as, Carnegie Hall, Cecil Sharp House, the Grand Ole Opry, the Opening Ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Newport Folk Festival and represented the United States at the 2017 Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Malaysia.
In 2005, Flemons co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops who have won a GRAMMY for Best Traditional Folk in 2010. He left the group to pursue his solo career in 2014. In 2016 the Carolina Chocolate Drops were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame and are featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
https://americansongwriter.com/dom-flemons-on-the-old-west-stories-behind-black-cowboys/
Dom Flemons on the Old West Stories Behind ‘Black Cowboys
Exploring more ancient literature, while earning his degree in English at Northern Arizona University, Dom Flemons started digging deeper into the study of folk music on a more literary level.
“As I began to find more African-American folk songs, I couldn’t help but want to contextualize them in some capacity,” said the Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist and music scholar during a recent interview on Color Me Country Radio with Rissi Palmer on Apple Music Country. “When I finally made my way to North Carolina, I got a chance to be able to be a part of the academic community, as well as be a part of the performing arm of creating awareness for a bit style of music, too.”
After college, Flemons, along with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson, started playing with the then 85-year-old fiddler Joe Thompson, and The Carolina Chocolate Drops were formed.
Thompson, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 93, played an older style of music out of his native Mebane, North Carolina, just west of Durham, so the trio would go to his house each week…. to learn his music.
“As a small ensemble, the three of us learned how to be Joe’s perfect backup band for his music,” shares Flemons, “but when we went off on our own, we became the Carolina Chocolate Drops.”
Still with the Drops, Flemons’ most recent solo album Black Cowboys (2018), is a collection of songs that was more than a decade in the works. It started with a small idea, like most of his songs, and a story that holds well. “We’re in such a time where the audience only has so much of an attention span, so if a story isn’t engaging, how can you expect for your one story to stick,” he says.
Always looking for stories of black cowboys from Arizona and out West, Flemons came upon the book “Negro Cowboys,” which was written in the 1960s and is a condensed version of black Western history as a whole, which helped him conceptualize the Black Cowboys album.
Flemons, who is Black and Mexican, says there are many stories of Blacks and Black Mexicans out west, dating as far back as 1691. Then, he came across a Rounder Records compilation called Black Texicans, featuring Library of Congress field recordings from John and Alan Lomax of Black Cowboys out in the prisons or on the ranges in Texas, and a song “The Old Chisholm Trail,” one of the songs featured on Black Cowboys.
“Being in Arizona, going to the folk festivals, I’d heard cowboy music, and I had always loved the style though I’d never played it, per se,” says Flemons. “I heard some of these field recordings and the way that they were singing it… the phrasing was very funky. Just by hearing it, I heard that there was a relevance to telling the ‘Black Cowboys’ story in audio that was different than just the pictures.”
Old Chisholm Trail
Dom Flemons Black Cowboys ℗ 2018 Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Released on: 2018-03-23
Singing his own song: Dom Flemons' journey to "Black Cowboys"
Dom Flemons, who plays a variety of instruments, is now versed in the history of black cowboy music, which, as it turns out, is the history of cowboy music.
Dom Flemons, known as the American Songster, plays old-time music from many traditions on a variety of instruments including banjo, bones, jug and harmonica. In telling the story of how he made his latest recording, “Black Cowboys,” Flemons happily took the scenic route.
Flemons’s grandfather followed sawmill work from Texas to Flagstaff, Ariz. He was also a preacher with the Church of God and Christ, and in the early 1950s he established a church in Holbrook, Ariz. Flemons, who was a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and now has a solo music career, grew up in Phoenix.
“My ethnicity is half-black and half-Mexican. I’m a fifth-generation Phoenix native on my mom’s side,” he said.
His mother, who comes from a copper-mining family, was a flamenco dancer who played the castanets — which he considers similar to playing the bones, a percussive folk instrument made from the ribs or leg bones of a cow. His only formal music training was as a drummer in his school’s marching band; he is otherwise self-taught. His father was a fan of cowboy music, so as a kid, Flemons listened to such performers as Marty Robbins, Willie Nelson and the singing cowboys of Riders in the Sky.
“That’s one part of it. Of course, being African American and growing up in the Southwest, (black cowboys) were something I knew were a fact,” Flemons said. “But it’s a two-part story, and the second half comes from when I was driving back out West from North Carolina, where I was living at the time.”
He happened to stop in the gift shop at Petrified Forest National Park, in northeastern Arizona, about 50 miles from the New Mexico border. He picked up a book from 1983 called “The Negro Cowboys,” written by Philip Durham and Everett L. Jones.
“The book talked about how one in four cowboys in the West was black. I thought that was a very illuminating statement, and from that point on I just started keeping tabs on stories about black cowboys,” Flemons said.
“I was surprised to find a ridiculously huge quantity of stories about African American people of the West, and how that connected to the history that developed after emancipation and during the Reconstruction era,” he said.
Flemons is now versed in the history of black cowboy music — which, as it turns out, is the history of cowboy music. He spoke of song collectors John Avery Lomax and N. Howard “Jack” Thorp, both of whom documented and recorded folk music in the early 20th century. In Lomax’s autobiography, “Adventures of a Ballad Hunter” (1947), Flemons read about his recording of the well-known cowboy song “Home on the Range” on a wax cylinder for the Library of Congress. The singer was a black cook.
“From that recording, Lomax transcribed the melody that the cook sang, and that became the Western national anthem,” Flemons said.
In Thorp’s autobiography, “Pardner of the Wind” (1977), Flemons learned that black cowboys were Thorp’s motivation for recording cowboy music in the first place.
“He talks about the moment when he realized he needed to document cowboy songs — which was out in New Mexico,” Flemons said. “There were a bunch of black cowboys sitting around a campfire, playing banjo and singing a song about one of their horses. Thorp says very specifically that the songs they were singing were different from any others he’d heard.”
When Flemons realized that, despite their lasting influence on the genre, there was no comprehensive album that collected songs of black cowboys, he fixed the problem.
“I decided to link up with Smithsonian Folkways and become a part of the African American Legacy Series, which is Smithsonian Folkways’ partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture,” Flemons said. “I knew that they didn’t have a black cowboy section in the museum, so I wanted to remedy that by having a testament to this amazing history.”
Flemons emphasized that though the history of the music is important to him, his main agenda is for people to enjoy themselves.
“The history is meant to elevate the joy people find in the music — but the music is meant to get people moving and put a smile on their face,” he said.
Flemons’ own joy is evident when he plays; there is almost a giddiness to his stage presence.
“I took on the moniker of the American Songster because my interest in music has always been quite varied,” Flemons said. “I’ve always found that there were through-lines between things like blues and ragtime, country music, folk music and early jazz. I’ve always tried to freely mix all of those things together in my music.”
Among the styles he calls upon on “Black Cowboys” is yodeling, a skill he said he keeps in his back pocket.
“I’ve always enjoyed the melodious sound of a good yodel, especially from Jimmie Rogers and Hank Williams — and even some of the recordings of groups like the Mississippi Sheiks, who were a black string band from the ’20s,” Flemons said.
Though the album is not yodel-driven, there are three types of yodeling for which to listen. On the first track, “Black Woman,” he uses a blues yodeling style that feels akin to high-lonesome bluegrass singing. On his version of “Home on the Range,” he yodels in the traditional style of Jimmie Rodgers.
“On the very last track, ‘Old Chisholm Trail,’ I do kind of a rough yodel in the style of the performer I first heard record the song for John Lomax — ‘Clear Rock’ Platt,” he said. “He has a rough R&B sound with his voice that I tried to replicate.”
As for how cowboys and their music may have become disassociated from black men in the popular imagination, Flemons said it was the influence of dime-store novels about Western frontier life that proliferated in the second half of the 19th century — as well as the ubiquity of stereotypes created and perpetuated by William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and his Wild West show. Dime-store novels romanticized cowboy life in a way that made the violence and brutality of the American frontier seem almost glamorous, but they sometimes included black characters. Cody’s show, however, positioned the famous scout and bison hunter as a hero and “created sort of a white-savior type of image for cowboys after that.” Cody’s show, which toured the United States and Europe, was born out of vaudeville. It did not differ substantially in concept, Flemons said, from blackface minstrel shows.
“They just changed the characters into cowboys and Indians.”
Want to go?
What: Dom Flemons headlines the 33nd annual Carolina Blues Festival
When: 2-10 p.m. May 18 and 1-6 p.m. May 19
Where: LeBauer Park, 208 N. Davie St., Greensboro
Tickets: $20 at carolinabluesfestival.com or at the door
Information: carolinabluesfestival.com, theamericansongster.com
https://theamericansongster.com/
The American Songster Highlights
New Reissue Album
“This album is a meeting of a lot of songs and arrangements I’ve had in my mind for the past decade. When I made this record I wanted to focus on producing an ensemble of talented musicians that represent traditional roots music as well it’s inroads into country & western, rhythm & blues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, and hip hop music. Visually, I chose to work with photographer and Music Maker Relief Foundation founder Timothy Duffy using his tintype photographs and images taken at the “Warren Store”. In a final note, I cannot finish these notes without mentioning the work of engineer Jason Richmond. I chose to work with Jason after hearing his studio work with a wide range of jazz and world musicians. Instead of treating the album like a folk “field” recording with one microphone in the room, I wanted to get a big, clean sound like a classic bebop jazz record. “- Prospect Hill: The American Songster Omnibus liner notes
Dom Receives the 2020 United States Artists Fellowship
Dom Flemons with Ken Burns:
(Photo credit: Christopher Wilson)
Dom Flemons with Quincy Jones:
(Photo Credit: Dennis Manuel)
In April 2019, Flemons was chosen to be a “Spotlight Artist” at the Soundtrack of America event at the “Shed” in New York City which was curated by the World Renowned Quincy Jones and EMMY Award Winning Director Steve McQueen.
Dom Flemons receives a 2019 Grammy Nomination for “Best Folk Album” for his solo album “Black Cowboys” which was released on Smithsonian Folkways.
Learn more:
https://folkways.si.edu/
Rolling Stone:‘Old Town Road’ and the History of Black Cowboys in America.
Singer-songwriter Dom Flemons on the cultural roots of Lil Nas X’s country-trap hit: “To see that mainstream stars are picking up on this idea, I think it’s fantastic.” Read more here.
Folk musician Dom Flemons tackles the legacy of the black cowboy
The world typically understands American cowboys as brave (white) men conquering the Wild West, erasing the presence of others
The common image of cowboys is usually a John Wayne-type — a handsome man with a quick draw. Or maybe it's something based on a real-life cowboy, herding cattle in muddied boots. Regardless, the collective image is definitely white.
The world typically understands American cowboys as brave (white) men conquering the Wild West and in doing so, erasing the presence of everyone who isn’t white.
Folk singer Dom Flemons, who plays the Ace Hotel on Thursday, is trying to change how we see these figures with his album Black Cowboys. It’s a collection of covers and originals meant to provide a comprehensive history of the cowboy that is missing from our lexicon.
“Cowboys are one of the most enduring and prominent images in American culture, and I learned that one in four cowboys who helped settle the West were black,” says Flemons, born and raised in Phoenix.
His album covers various pieces of black cowboy history, from Nat Love, an escaped slave turned cowboy, to Bass Reeves, who was the inspiration for the Lone Ranger.
Black Cowboys features a version of “Home on the Range,” one of the most recognizable American cowboy songs. What’s lesser known is that the most recognizable version comes from a recording of a black cook in 1908.
Flemons also wrote three original songs for the album: “One Dollar Bill” is about Hollywood's “sepia-toned” cowboys; “Steel Pony Blues” is about Love; and “He's a Lone Ranger” is about Reeves.
This 18-song project is not just about highlighting historical figures, but about bringing attention to the contributions of black musicians who have historically been glossed over — specifically in the realm of folk and country music.
“Hank Williams learned from a man named Tee-Tot, and that's where he got a lot of his famous sound. Bill Monroe and his brother Charlie learned from a man named Arnold Shultz,” says Flemons.
The most famous white folk and country musicians were usually influenced by black musicians. Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger learned from Lead Belly. A.P. Carter got many of The Carter Family’s most famous songs from a black man named Lesley Riddle, who saw none of the profits or name recognition.
While Flemons’ second solo album is his first project to specifically explore the history of black cowboys, he has been a leader in the folk revivalist genre since founding Carolina Chocolate Drops (along with Rhiannon Giddens) in 2005.
On Black Cowboys, he uses a collection of instruments meant to evoke both the sound and feel of cowboy music, including a Gibson Hound Dog guitar, quills (a kind of pan pipe), and rib bones.
The album was recorded under Smithsonian Folkways' African American Legacy Series, which is a collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The series features music and words from the likes of Paul Robeson and Fannie Lou Hamer.
“It has a lot of legacy artists who aren't living,” says Flemons. “I wanted to show that we're still here.”
https://www.npr.org/2014/07/30/336577946/dom-flemons-holds-onto-that-old-time-root
Dom Flemons Holds On To Those Old-Time Roots
From his vintage hat to his enormous 1920s banjo, Dom Flemons looks like he's time-traveled from a different era.
Flemons was in Carolina Chocolate Drops, a Grammy-winning group that's extended the tradition of African-American string bands of the 1920s and '30s. His new solo album, Prospect Hill, is his first since leaving the group. Flemons sin
By coincidence, Flemons recorded the album the day legendary folksinger Pete Seeger died. Seeger had a major influence on Flemons and was one of the reasons he was drawn to play the banjo. Despite the sad circumstances, they enjoyed playing in remembrance of him. "That's the thing about the blues, and string-band music is the same way — it grabs to a root and it brings you out of whatever spot [you're in]," he tells host Terry Gross. "Then you can project out that energy through the songs — and it was joyful."
Flemons recently joined Fresh Air in the studio to play songs from Prospect Hill and discuss what he loves about old-time music.
Interview Highlights
On the music that inspired him to play in an old-time acoustic style
"It started out with my interest in oldies, like doo-wop, '60s rock, '60s pop music, '50s rock 'n' roll... I just started pushing toward these styles that weren't particularly contemporary at the time. I also listened to other stuff like Green Day when they first came out, or Sublime and groups like that.
"But acoustic music at that time, there wasn't a whole bunch of it, unless a rock singer decided to do an acoustic-y ballad number or something like that, or adult-contemporary acoustic music. So when I heard Bob Dylan's first record, the self-titled Bob Dylan one, that really blew my mind. It made me think about guitar and harmonica, so I started doing that. I started learning everything that I could hear on the radio."
On his musical background
"I was doing a lot of busking. I played for a while in a group called The Wild Whiskey Boys, and so I played harmonica in that group, but it was always guitar, banjo and harmonica. And that was all I played until I came to North Carolina, and then I started playing the bones and the quills and the bass drum, snare drum, all the drums — I played that in school, so that was my actual formal training. I was in marching band with bass drum, and then I played auxiliary percussion from tympani all the way down to suspended cymbal to triangles and all that stuff. So [I got] a good sense of not just the main rhythm, but what the auxiliary rhythm that you put on top of the main rhythm was."
Dom Flemons - "Ain't it a Good Thing"
On doing imitations of performers when he sings their songs
"The idea that I had in my 16-year-old mind is that I'd hear these songs, and no one else knew what these songs were, so I'd try my best to replicate them so that people would get a sense of the song as it was performed by the original performer. At that time, I didn't feel like I had any interesting stories. After being in the business for about 15 years, just about now, I have some stories of my own. But at first, I didn't really have stories, so I would tell other people's stories."
On his large and tricked-out banjo
"It's
an 18-inch head on here, and usually most banjos you see are maybe an
11-inch head in diameter. It has a very fancy pick guard, a very
extravagant inlay, because this was actually made in Philadelphia;
there's a small guitar-making studio that made this banjo. It has lights
that you could clip onto the truss rod so that you can heat the head of
the banjo, in case it happens to be a hot day and the skin gets moist
and soggy, to dry it out... If there was more [humidity], the skin would
start to sink down and the notes would start to sound kind of mushy...
This was made circa 1924, and so this is an old vintage instrument that
is one of a kind. And I'm really glad to be the owner of it."
AUDIO: <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/336577946/336605791" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"></iframe>
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/336577946
TERRY GROSS, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)
GROSS: Well, that got my attention - when I first played Dom Flemon's new album, "Prospect Hill." It's his first album since leaving the Carolina Chocolate Drops - a Grammy award-winning group extending the tradition of African-American string bands of the 1920s and '30s. Flemons sings and plays guitar, banjo, bones, harmonica, fife and jug. His new solo album reflects his interest in old-timey music, blues, early jazz, and rhythm and blues.
The album also includes a couple of original songs. Flemons grew up in Arkansas and now lives in North Carolina. He's brought several of his instruments with him and is going to perform some songs for us. Dom Flemons, welcome to FRESH AIR.
DON FLEMONS: Oh, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me again, Terry.
GROSS: I want to start by asking you to play a song and it's a song that's on your new album. The song is called "My Money Never Runs Out." Tell us a little bit about the song for you play it.
FLEMONS: Well, "My Money Never Runs Out" - it was originally recorded by a fellow by the name of Gus Cannon, who went by the name of Banjo Joe. He was a black banjo player and a songster, and he also was a fellow who performed in blackface. So he was a black fellow who played in blackface. And so he had a very unique repertoire that reflected the popular music of the 1890s into the first World War.
GROSS: Some people wouldn't touch music that had anything to do with blackface.
FLEMONS: Well, you know, Gus Cannon's music is very interesting in the way that he was part of that generation that retained a lot of the same repertoire. But they took out words like coon and, you know, of course the N-word and darkey. And they took all those particular words out of the songs, even though they retained the musical material. So Gus Cannon was part of that and he was kind of like in the - kind of like the lower rungs of the music industry, compared to people like Bert Williams, who were on the top rungs.
GROSS: So do the song for us. It's called "My Money Never Runs Out" - oh, well, after it's over, I'll ask you to tell us about the banjo you're playing on (laughing).
FLEMONS: Oh, sure thing. Here's a little bit of "My Money Never Runs Out." (Singing) Now there's a flirtin' yellow joker living around this town. He's just as lazy as a lazy can be. As long as they flirt boys, he hangs around, I love my hops, says he. Early one morning this joker ran away, to roam the world was said. I believe I'll go back to bed. Man, I give up my head, I don't care if I never wake up. Yes, I don't care if I never wake up 'til the birds is through with me. Now I'm coming around here with my big Ford, going to run them up a tree. Nothing like living like a money king, I drink from a silver cup. I eat pork and pears, I eat out of (unintelligible), I don't care if I never wake up. Yes, yes. Now if my money boys was stacked high, I believe my soul would touch the sky. I polish people in the diamond dust man, I don't care with this banjo base because my money don't never run out. You rich fools you are making me shout every good evening this sweet old toast I shout. Yes, I'm livin' a good old time. Don't take no beer and no cheap wine. And I always (unintelligible) because my money don't never run out.
GROSS: That's Dom Flemons performing in our studio. And he does that song on his new album, which is called "Prospect Hill." It is so much fun to hear that and so educational to hear it too. So I'm going to ask you to pick the banjo back up and tell us about it. And was the style that you were playing a style that Gus Cannon originated?
FLEMONS: Well, this style I was playing in is my own adaptation of Gus Cannon's style. See, he played with a five-string banjo. And when I started playing, I started with four strings. I had a good friend of mine who passed me a five-string banjo that he had taken the fifth string out of. So I learned how to play all the songs I knew on guitar on the banjo. So, you know, I used to play songs like this, a song like "Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard" by Paul Simon. So, you know, I'd do it more frantic in like a - (singing) Well, mama pajama rolled out of bed and she went to the police station. Papa found out and began to shout and he started the investigation. It was against the law, it was against the law. What the mama saw was against the law. And momma turned around and spit on the ground every time my name gets mentioned. Papa said oy, if I get that boy, I'm going to stick him in the house detention. Well, I'm on my way. I don't know where I'm going. I'm on my way. I'm taking my time, but I don't know where. Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona, seeing me and Julio down by the schoolyard. Seeing me and Julio down by the schoolyard.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: That's really great. That's so much fun. So that's how you learned to play banjo, by adapting, like, rock songs and stuff like that?
FLEMONS: Oh yeah. I used to take all sorts of different stuff and I'd experiment on the banjo or the guitar. And then I found out about open d tuning, open g tuning on the guitar. And I found that I could take different techniques I learned on the banjo and put them on the guitar. And then I worked them the other way round, taking stuff on the guitar onto the banjo. And that gave me - it gave me my own sort of way of looking at the material so when I got into old-timey music, a lot of the stuff is based on those same sort of notes and cord shapes and stuff like that. So I began to form my own style based on that.
GROSS: So what first got you interested in the kind of music that you're playing now, which is music of the '20s and the '30s - and music - as if it was from the '20s and '30s - playing more contemporary things in the manner of the '20s and '30s?
FLEMONS: Well, I mean, it started out with my interest in oldies and...
GROSS: By oldies, you mean like doo-wop and stuff?
FLEMONS: Doo-Wop, '60s rock, '60s pop music, '50s rock 'n roll. I also really loved a lot of documentaries. And so I watched a lot about these different styles of music.
GROSS: So you were already out of your period.
FLEMONS: Yeah. And just when I started, I was...
GROSS: Because you're what, in your thirties?
FLEMONS: Yeah, I'm 31 this year.
GROSS: Oh, OK
FLEMONS: Yeah, I just started pushing - pushing toward these styles that weren't particularly contemporary at the time. I also listened to other stuff like - I listened to like Green Day when they first came out or Sublime and, you know, just kind of groups like that. But acoustic music at that time, there just wasn't a whole bunch of it, unless like a rock singer decided to do an acousticy ballad number, something like that, or adult contemporary acoustic music. And so when I heard Bob Dylan's first record, the self-titled, it blew my mind. Made me think about guitar and harmonica, so I started doing that. I started learning, you know, everything I could hear on the radio. I'm also a curious enough person - so when I got into records, I'd see these greatest hits albums of these doo-wop groups. And I just would look up each of the groups. I'd look up - who were The Spaniels? What sort of songs do they do? And yeah, I just - I'm just a sort of studious sort of person that's into that sort of stuff so, I just was doing that for four or five years. I was busking out on the streets. I was playing at the folk coffee houses in Phoenix and I was going to college in Flagstaff. And so I just always kept all that stuff going. So when I went to the Black Banjo Gathering, I had all this knowledge in my head about how different types of...
GROSS: The Black Banjo Gathering.
FLEMONS: Yeah.
GROSS: And that is?
FLEMONS: That was - that was an event in Boone, North Carolina, in 2005. And that was where I met Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson and we started the Carolina Chocolate Drops after that. And so that was, you know, at that time I was just making up a style of playing music. And so then I had another transition point, where - when I move to the South, I learned a whole bunch more about Southern music. I started to work with the Music Maker Relief Foundation and I got to learn about why the music sounds the way it does. And so I learned those sort of little lessons in my own heart. And so over time, I've tried to develop my own style.
GROSS: And you have.
FLEMONS: I appreciate it, Terry.
GROSS: And it's a very eclectic style. So if you're just joining us, my guest is musician and singer and songwriter Dom Flemons. And he used to be with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but he's now solo and he's performing a lot of music from the '20s and '30s and onward. And his new album is called "Prospect Hill." Let's take a short break and then we'll talk some more and Don Flemons will perform more for us. This is FRESH AIR.
FLEMONS: Oh, the funny thing that I found was that he didn't write it.
GROSS: No, I couldn't believe it when I read who wrote it, when I looked more carefully. Frank Loesser wrote it. And he wrote "Guys And Dolls," and...
FLEMONS: Oh.
GROSS: You didn't know that?
FLEMONS: No. See, I saw the name, and I recognized it. But I just assumed he was, like, one of the major, Nashville, country guys.
GROSS: Oh, no.
FLEMONS: Oh, he wrote "Guys And Dolls"?
GROSS: He wrote the musicals "Guys And Dolls," "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." He wrote a beautiful, almost, like, opera, which is called "Most Happy Fella." He wrote "Baby It's Cold Outside" and a gazillion songs. So - anyways - why don't we play the song your style? And then we'll talk a little bit more about it.
FLEMONS: All right. Well, here we go with "Have I Stayed Away Too Long?"
(Singing) Have I stayed away too long? Have I stayed away too long? Now, if I came home tonight, would you still be my darling? Or have I stayed away too long? Long-distance out of town, call me the worry lad. Maybe I don't want to hurry back. Now, I'd just stay out of town, worry you no more. I know you found someone else to make you care. Now, all my dreams have gone wrong. My beautiful dreams have gone wrong. Now, if I came home tonight, would you still be my darlin'? Or have I stayed away too long?
GROSS: So that's my guest Dom Flemons, performing in our studio. And he does that song also on his new album, which is called "Prospect Hill." When we left off, right before you started playing that song, we were talking about how it was written by Frank Loesser. And you said you'd assumed he was one of the Nashville songwriters. And, in fact, Tex Ritter, I think, had a hit with the song. But I went on iTunes to see who else recorded it. Perry Como recorded it. (Laughing) So I listened to a little of the Perry Como version. It's like 180 degrees different from what you did. It's like a slow ballad and, you know, kind of middle-of-the-road.
FLEMONS: Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny 'cause the first version I heard was the one on the Blind James Campbell record. And I had no idea that it was - it was recorded by anybody else. And so as I was putting the publishing together on the record - you know, you have to get the songwriter's name and everything - then I started finding out all the other versions that had been done of it. And it's really different, what Blind James Campbell - and then for me, hearing it, I tried to put a Hank Williams or a honky-tonk sort of flavor onto it - or even also like a Big Joe Turner, that sort of a feel on the song. So that's such a - spins around in a whole bunch of different circles.
GROSS: So you sing a lot of songs that you've learned over the years. You collect songs as well as recordings.
FLEMONS: Oh, yes.
GROSS: And you, I'm sure, know a gazillion songs. But you write songs as well. And you wrote a song that really sounds like almost an answer song to the song that you just did. The song you just did asks the question, have I stayed away too long? And the song that you wrote is called, "Too Long I've Been Gone," as if answering the question. Yep, I have stayed away too long. Would you do an excerpt of that song for us, and maybe tell us what inspired the song? Did the song we just heard inspired this song?
FLEMONS: Oh, no. This song was - I wrote "Too Long I've Been Gone" about a year and a half ago. I was just sitting in the hotel room one day, and I just started musing on the idea of when you're traveling a bunch, how lonesome you can get just for - you know, the same thing - Paul Simon did the same thing in, you know...(Singing) Every day is an endless stream of cigarettes and magazines - on "Homeward Bound." It was kind of a song like that. I tried to reach into - make a folk song that would be, you know - that would be a nice little message in there. I didn't want to get too deep on it. Like, this whole album was an exercise for me to cut back on any excess things I was doing. And for "Too Long I've Been Gone," I had about two more verses. But I cut all of them out because I felt like it told the whole story. So I'll play little bit of this one here.
GROSS: Thank You.
FLEMONS: (Singing) Don't need no cup of coffee in the morning. I can get up fine. I can get up fine. Delia is a pretty girl. But she ain't mine - but she ain't mine. Take a little trip to the station, I'm bound to go. I'm bound to go. When I'll see my love again I do not know. I do not know. Too long, too long I've been gone. Four white walls and a worried mind - that's all I have. That's all. That's all. And when I need someone to talk to, I just say, hello, wall. Too long, too long I've been gone.
GROSS: Nice. Thank you. And that is Dom Flemons singing a song that he also does on his new album. The album is called "Prospect Hill." And today he's performing for us in our studio. So the song you just sang, which you wrote, has a very kind of folk sense to it. You were in college in Arizona. You grew up in Arizona. You were in college in Arizona when you started getting into folk music. But you used to play in rock 'n roll bands, right?
FLEMONS: No, I never really played in rock 'n roll bands. I always played solo.
GROSS: Oh, so you were, like, doing a lot of busking?
FLEMONS: I was doing a lot of busking. I'd play solo. I played for a while in a group called the Wild Whiskey Boys. And so I played harmonica in that group. But it was always guitar, banjo and harmonica. And that was all I played until I came to North Carolina. And then I started playing the bones and the quills - oh, and the bass drum, snare drum, all the drums. I played that in school, so that was like my actual formal training. So...
GROSS: Were you in marching band in school?
FLEMONS: Yeah, I was in marching band with bass drum. And then I was - I played, like, auxiliary percussion. I played all the different - from timpani all the way down to suspended cymbal, triangles and all of that stuff - so a good sense of not just the main rhythm but what the auxiliary rhythm that you put on top of the main rhythm was. And that was something that I didn't think about until later - like ideas of syncopation, you know, sort of subdividing rhythms and things like that. Those were all things that I just naturally had inherent within my own musical education.
GROSS: Did you learn to love marches, being in marching band?
FLEMONS: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, another old song I got to thinking about - a song like "Workin' At The Car Wash Blues" by Jim Croce. Like, this is the story of stuff I used to do. So, like, when Jim Croce does it, he does...
(Singing) Well, I just got out of the county prison, doing 90 days for non-support. Trying to get me an executive position, but no matter how smooth I talk, they wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius.
So that's that style. But if I wanted to change into, like, a gospel - a quartet number, I'd do, you know...
(Singing) Well, I just got out of the county prison, doing 90 days for non-support. Trying to get me an executive position, but no matter how smooth I talk they wouldn't listen to the fact that I was a genius. Man say, we got all that we can use. Got them steadily depressing, lowdown mind messing, workin' at the car wash blues.
So I used to do that. I used to take all the styles that weren't the styles of the original artist, and I used to just do that. You know, and I would just - you know, and just for my own amusement I would do this sort of stuff all the time. So when I started getting into performing and reinterpreting traditional material, I tried to find material that wasn't the well-known material - 'cause everybody's done a Robert Johnson number. And it's really hard to reinterpret that stuff because it's just so well-worn. I just tried to find people like, you know, that interested me - like Henry Thomas, or Papa Charlie Jackson, Lead Belly, Charley Patton - where there was a little bit of room to interpret their music so that I could learn it my own way. And then I could try to figure out how to put my own stamp on it. You know, that's the thing that every songster does.
GROSS: Dom Flemons will be back in the second half of the show and perform more songs for us. Here's a track from his new album "Prospect Hill." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "POLLY PUT THE KETTLE ON")
FLEMONS: (Singing) Oh, little Susie, how I love you. Nothing in the world can make me snug you. Polly, put the kettle on, kettle on, kettle on. Polly, put the kettle on. Boil the tea 'cause bread and butter's good enough, good enough for anybody. Bread and butter's good enough, good enough for me.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross back with Dom Flemons. He was a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a band extending the tradition of African-American string bands. He recently left the group and has just released his first solo album called "Prospect Hill." It reflects his interest in old-timey music, blues and early jazz. He plays guitar, banjo, harmonica, bones, jug and fife and has brought some of his instruments to the studio. I was wondering if I could ask you to perform an excerpt of one of the songs that first got you interested either in folk music, or in music of the '20s and '30s.
FLEMONS: Well, one of the things that really got me interested in a lot of the old music was a documentary called the "History Of Rock & Roll." And they had an episode about the folk revival.
GROSS: Was this the PBS series?
FLEMONS: Yes it was. When I was watching that documentary, one of the first country-blues musicians I got interested - they had a little clip of him - and it was Lightnin' Hopkins doing the song "Mojo Hand." I just love the sound of his (singing) I'm going to Louisiana. I'm going to get me a mojo hand. I'm going to Louisiana. I'm going to give me a mojo hand. I'm going to fix my woman so she can't have no other man.
And I love that intro. (Singing) that's what I'm going to do (laughing.)
GROSS: So, you know, I can hear that you can - you're almost trying to, like, channel the performers that you do and get their voice as well as their guitar style down. I guess if you have a really good ear, it's easier to do that, to really also copy somebody's voice. Like if you have really good pitch, you can get somebody's voice better. You were telling me earlier before we started the broadcast that when you were performing solo early in your career, you would do imitations...
FLEMONS: Oh yeah, yeah (laughing).
GROSS: ...Of performers.
FLEMONS: Yeah, well, the idea that I had in my 16-year-old mind is that - see I would hear the songs and no one else knew what these songs were, so I tried my best to replicate them so that people would get a sense of the song as it was performed by the original performer. At that time, I didn't feel like I had any interesting stories. After being in the business now for 15 years just about now, I have some stories of my own. But at first, I didn't really have stories. So I would tell other people's stories and then, you know, I'd do like - let's see, (laughing) I'll do a funny one of - I used to do Nashville skyline Bob Dylan. I used to do - you know most people know him as - with this voice - (singing) go away from my window, leave at your own chosen speed. You know, but in national skyline he started singing like - (singing) Peggy day stole my poor heart away. By golly, what more can I say? Love to spend the night with Peggy Day.
FLEMONS: I used to do that.
(LAUGHTER)
FLEMONS: When I was 18, I got to see Dave Van Ronk and I heard him do this song... (MUSIC)
FLEMONS: And especially with Llewyn Davis coming out now, people know a little bit more about David Van Ronk, which is a really beautiful to me.
(Singing) Well, listen here pretty Papa, please get out of my sight. I'm calling it quits now, right from this very night. You've had your day. Don't stand around. You're being a good old wagon daddy, but you done broke down.
GROSS: But you were telling me though that you also did Van Morrison.
FLEMONS: Let's see. (Singing) Half a mile from the county fair and the rain came pouring down. Me and Billy standing there with a silver half a crown. Hands are full of fishin' rod and the tackle on our back. We just stood there getting wet, with our backs against the fence.
And if I wanted to sing it like Van Morrison now - (singing) oh, in the water. Oh, the water, (unintelligble).
(LAUGHTER)
FLEMONS: You know, and I'd do things like that or, you know...
GROSS: Did you ever have a hard time figuring out but who is Dom Flemons?
FLEMONS: I thought about it every once in a while. And I wrote songs at first. The first five or six years I performed, on top of doing other people's songs, I did my own songs too. But I got into a spot where I just really felt like doing songs that I liked playing. I just didn't feel like writing songs anymore. I just felt like oh, gosh. I'm not as good of a songwriter as, like, the great songwriters that I had listened to. So I just focused on styles and then for this one, I decided to creep a little bit of songwriting back into it.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Dom Flemons. He used to be a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band that was reviving the African-American string band tradition. But he's recently gone solo and he has a new solo album, which is called "Prospect Hill." Let's take a short break and we'll hear Dom Flemons perform some more. This is FRESH AIR.
FLEMONS: Well, you know, I just - I just realized I'm going to start calling it Big Head Joe.
GROSS: (Laughing).
FLEMONS: Because someone was - someone was sitting in an audience at show they just kept saying that's such a big head on that banjo. That's such a big head on that banjo. And I've been trying think of name, so Big Head Joe I think, is a good name.
GROSS: That's very good. Would you describe it's size and how it compares to a regular banjos?
FLEMONS: Well, it's an 18-inch head on here. Usually most banjos you see are maybe 11-inch heads in diameter. It has a very fancy pick guard, a very extravagant inlay because this actually a - this was actually made in Philadelphia. There was a small guitar making studio that made this banjo. It's called the Clef Club brand banjo. I picked it up at the pick Retrofret guitar shop in Brooklyn and they couldn't find anything to link the Clef Club brand with the Clef Club Orchestra, which was James Reese Europe's orchestra. But you know, I'm taking a little bit of historical liberty by saying if there's the Cleft Club brand of banjo, and this is a big banjo like you'd have in a banjo orchestra, I feel like it's a least a knockoff banjo that a professional musician had made for him. Because it as a really fancy pick guard. It has a little holder your flatpick. It came with the capo. It had lights that you could clip onto the truss rod so that you can heat the head of the banjo, in case it happens to be a hot day and the skin gets moist and soggy. It has, you know, it has these little custom lights so you can just plug them in there.
GROSS: What, to dry it out?
FLEMONS: Yeah, just to dry it out so that it can, you know, you see right now?
(MUSIC)
FLEMONS: There's not too much humidity, but if there was - if there was more of it, the skin would start to sink down and the notes would start to sound kind of mushy. And so I found out that that was another thing that they had. They had little lights for professional banjo players. They either have a little foot switch or they plugged it in or whatever it was because it doesn't take a lot. You just have to put a little heat on it and then the banjo is good to go.
GROSS: So when was this first made?
FLEMONS: This was made - they have it written down as circa 1924. And so this is an old, vintage instrument here that's just one-of-a-kind and I'm really glad to be the owner of it.
GROSS: And it's much deeper sounding than a regular banjo.
FLEMONS: Oh yeah. Well, you know, for example here, a song that I've played for quite a few years was "Your Baby Ain't Sweet Like Mine" which is a Papa Charlie Jackson number. But on this banjo, it sounds - this is a little bit more how Papa Charlie played it - and I'll sing it more like Papa Charlie too. (Singing) I'm going to tell you about my baby. Well, I can't tell you everything about my baby. It wouldn't be possible to tell you everything - it wouldn't be possible to tell you everything. Everybody talking about the sweetie nowadays, I've got the one with the sweetest ways. Your baby may roll her jelly fine, nobody's baby can roll it like mine. Your baby ain't sweet like mine. She make her jelly roll all the time. And when I'm feeling lonesome and blue, my baby know just what to do. Yes sir, she even calls me honey. She even let me spend her money. Never has a baby put me outdoors, she even buys me all my clothes. I don't want to brag, I want to put you in line. Your baby ain't sweet like mine, oh no. Your baby ain't sweet like mine.
GROSS: That's great (laughing).
FLEMONS: And so just for comparison sake, I would play it on the regular guitar - I would play the same thing. Even between guitar-banjo - (singing) everybody talking about the sweetie nowadays, I got the one with the sweetest ways.
See, it even has a completely different tone...
GROSS: Yeah.
FLEMONS: ...if I play it on this regular guitar. And that's always been the appeal of those instruments is that you can - it's tuned like a guitar and it plays like a guitar, but it has a banjo quality to it.
GROSS: Oh, I didn't realize that.
FLEMONS: And...
GROSS: And the big banjos tune like a guitar?
FLEMONS: Yeah, this one's tuned exactly like a guitar. And see, so they sell - they sell smaller ones usually, like Deering, Gold Tone - all of them have their own versions of their - of a six-string banjo. Rod Stewart did it on - when he was doing the "Standards" album, he really popularized the six-string. Johnny St. Cyr, who played with Louis Armstrong, he played a six-string. Danny Barker, the New Orleans player - it was really a New Orleansy instrument - the main proponents of it - that and Papa Charlie Jackson, who was another New Orleans guy - they played six-string banjo. But it kind of - once - once they electrified guitars, it really put the nail in the coffin on the six-string banjo because sound wise, it's not particularly a great instrument. Since this one's so big, it has a really great resonant tone, but smaller ones generally have bad intonation and they're all, like, very midrangey sort of instruments. So in terms of recorded music, it tends to be a very hard instrument to record. So once they realized they could just - you have parlor guitars and electric guitars, they just dropped the six-string banjo altogether.
GROSS: So an advantage of banjo before electrification was that it would cut through a little better.
FLEMONS: Yeah. It's like six-strings and, like, resonators. Those are like the two types of big, big amplified - pre-amplified - guitars that people would play.
GROSS: So most banjos have five strings.
FLEMONS: Yeah, most banjos have five. I don't play five-string all the time. I don't carry one with me. But it's - four and six strings are my two (laughing).
GROSS: And why four-string?
FLEMONS: Four was just because I started out on four-strings and I'm more comfortable playing it with four. And, you know, but I was - I know it's not the real way to play it, but I, you know, I've found that it's worked out for me OK after a while.
GROSS: So there's a song that you do on your new album, it's called "But They Got It Fixed Right On" that I'd like you to do for us. And you do that on that really large banjo.
FLEMONS: Oh yes. Yeah, see because a song like "But They Got It Fixed Right On" is so ridiculous that I have to have this ridiculous banjo to go with it (laughing).
GROSS: Tell us about the song before you play it.
FLEMONS: Now, the song is a type of song called a hokum song, which is a song - the hokum songs are all humorous songs. They have double entendres, so they mean, you know, two different things at one time when you say a certain phrase. And this was actually recorded and written by Thomas A Dorsey and Tampa Red. And this was the type of music that Thomas A Dorsey was doing before - he had actually a series of tragedies which led him to become a very, very much a God-fearing man. And he then wrote "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and "Peace In The Valley." And he actually made a larger career being a gospel song writer. But beforehand, he and Tampa Red came up with a song "It's Tight Like That." And a lot of these hokum numbers, he pretty much invented the style. And so I'll play it for you now - "But They Got It Fixed Right On."
(MUSIC)
FLEMONS: (Singing) Gal with a Ford and a boy named Jim, he liked her and she liked him. Both broke down in a country bar, but they didn't get home until after dark. But they got it fixed, ain't no doubt, nobody know what the song's about. Too bad that the news got out, but they got it fixed right on. A man with a peg-leg and a gal named Sue broke his peg-leg half in two. Only way that they could fix the leg was to get this gal to take a hold of the peg. But they got it fixed, ain't no doubt, nobody know what the song's about. Too bad that the news got out but they got it fixed right on. A gal walked into the butcher shop, grabbed the butcher's big ham hock. Butcher knocked her right off her feet, she missed his bone but she got his meat. But they got it fixed, ain't no doubt, nobody know what the songs about. Too bad that the news got out, but they got it fixed right on. Now, the monkey and the polecat made a deal, to discuss the subject of sex appeal. Skunk won the argument right or wrong, sex appeal was much too strong. But they got it fixed, ain't no doubt, nobody know what the song's about. Too bad that the news got out, but they got it fixed right on.
GROSS: (Laughing) that's great. That's Dom Flemons performing in our studio. And that's a song he also does on his new album, which is called "Prospect Hill." So your new solo album "Prospect Hill" was recorded, I think, the day of or the day after Pete Seeger died.
FLEMONS: Yeah.
GROSS: And being immersed in folk music as you are, what did he mean to you and what did that coincidence of dates - how did that affect the mood when you were recording?
FLEMONS: Oh well, I mean Pete's been an essential part of my life as a lover of folk music ever since I heard a demo version of him playing "If I Had A Hammer." And that was really one of the first times I really thought about the banjo as an instrument - that I liked the sound of it. You know, it'd be years before I actually played one. But I had heard it and I liked the sound of that. And so Pete was - he was getting close to - getting close to being on the way out. It was not looking good. I have a couple of friends - mutual friends - and I've met Pete on several occasions. I never got to go out to his house, but I have enough mutual friends that I could hear it was - he wasn't long for this world. And Guy Davis had signed on for the album. I had known Guy for a lot of years.
GROSS: Playing guitar on the album?
FLEMONS: Yeah, playing guitar and harmonica on the record as well and snare drum. And he had been visiting Pete the morning - I mean, I guess the afternoon before Pete died. So he went on a redeye flight the next morning to come down to the session. Pete passed away within that time. And he was also - his mom Ruby Dee just passed away too, and so he also just had to...
GROSS: Guy Davis's mom was Ruby Dee?
FLEMONS: Yes, Ruby and Ossie were - are his parents.
GROSS: Oh, Ossie Davis.
FLEMONS: Yeah, so he was taking care of her too. So he had to come down, you know, passed mom off to his sisters and then had to leave Pete. Pete passed away so it's like, you know, his heart was heavy with all that stuff. But he also came in wanting to work, and so he said let's go ahead and do this. And, I mean, that comes through - that spirit comes through on the album. We just - we got in there...
GROSS: It's just so interesting that he was in this other place, this place of mourning and preparing to mourn. But the music on most of the album is really so lighthearted.
FLEMONS: Yeah, it's just - that's the thing about the blues and string band music's the same way. It grabs to a root and it brings you out of whatever spot it is, you know, like - yeah, you feel that feeling and then you can protect out that energy just through the songs. And it was joyful.
GROSS: Well, Dom Flemons, it's really been great to talk with you and to hear you perform. Thank you so much for being with us and for playing for us.
FLEMONS: Well, thank you for having me, Terry. And I just have to say that it's just such a great pleasure to be here again on the show with you.
GROSS: Here's more music from Dom Flemon's new album "Prospect Hill."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "'TIL THE SEAS RUN DRY")
FLEMONS: Well, it's too late, can't get along with you honey babe. Too late, seems that we've run out of time. I'll always remember the love we shared. I got to get you baby off my mind. I get away, get away. I'm never going to take you back. Not until clocks run backwards and the seas run dry. You treated me like a fool and oh so cruel, but it's too late baby to try me one more time. Oh Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
GROSS: Coming up, tech contributor Alexis Madrigal explains why the app and website Pinterest is more than a digital scrapbook, it's becoming a place to conduct searches when you don't quite know what you're looking for. This is FRESH AIR.
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