WS Chronicle

Dom Flemons is known as “The American Songster® since his repertoire covers over one hundred years of American roots music. Flemons is a folk musician, Black country artist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music scholar, historian, actor, slam poet, record collector, curator, podcaster, cultural commentator, influencer, and the creator, host, and producer of the American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, Tennessee.  

He is the co-founder and original member of the groundbreaking Carolina Chocolate Drops, the first ever Black string band to win a GRAMMY Award.  

Flemons learned at the knee of traditional musician Joe Thompson of Alamance Country, North Carolina, one of the last of the Piedmont blues and old-time music African American artists. Following the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone in 2005, Flemons and the Carolina Chocolate Drops influenced a resurgence of Black country and old-time music. As both a music archaeologist and original songwriter, Flemons produced a 2017 album entitled “Black Cowboys” with traditional and original songs and “Traveling Wildfire,” his most recent album, in 2023, on Smithsonian Folkways., which describes it in this way. “Carefully selected from his personal repertoire, these original songs reveal his love of country, western, blues, Americana, bluegrass and folk music as they tell of true love, family legacy, survival, time travel, and the juxtaposition between light and dark. “Traveling Wildfire” weaves through the themes of hope and humor as it rises above the hard times with strength and lightheartedness.” 

Over the past 25 years, he has received major awards, gained world-wide media recognition, and has become one of the most influential and highly decorated voices in American roots music.  

Accompanying Flemons will be Colin Cutler, a Greensboro-based singer-songwriter, folk musician, poet, and storyteller toting a banjo and guitar. Whether solo or with his band, Hot Pepper Jam, he is a wide-ranging performer whose musical roots draw from the breadth of American folk music – from Appalachian old-time to blues to gospel to country to rock’n’roll – to form what “No Depression” has described as “one magnificent tapestry of roots music.” 

The performance will be held at the N.C. Museum of Art-Winston-Salem (formerly SECCA), on Saturday, April 19, at 7 p.m. in the McChesney Scott Dunn Auditorium. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7 p.m. 

VIP tickets include access to a reserved seating area and a limited edition screen print poster by Skillet Gilmore. For tickets, go to https://tinyurl.com/rx35m2tu.