Grammy Nominee for Best Folk Album!
International Folk Awards 2018 Artist of the Year Nominee!
Blues Music Award Nominee for latest album "Black Cowboys"!
Dom Flemons 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. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, Flemons currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
In 2018, Flemons released his fourth solo album titled Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys on GRAMMY Award winning record label Smithsonian Folkways. This recording is part of the African American Legacy Recordings series, co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
The album has spent five consecutive weeks on Billboard Bluegrass and charted on both Folk radio and Traditional Folk radio charts. Flemons was featured on syndicated radio broadcasts World Café and NPR’s Here and Now to discuss the history of black cowboys and the new record. Flemons’ website TheAmericanSongster.com was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the American Music Creators Web Archive.
Hear a January 2019 interview with Dom Flemons on NPR's All Things Considered.
Flemons has performed with leading musicians, such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Taj Mahal, Guy Davis, Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson and Boo Hanks. He’s 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. He’s 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 2017, Flemons was featured on David Holt’s State of Music on PBS and performed as bluesman Joe Hill Louis on CMT’s original hit television show, Sun Records. In 2016, Flemons released a duo album with British musician Martin Simpson titled Ever Popular Favourites, on Fledg’ling Records. Flemons launched a podcast, American Songster Radio, on WUNC Public Radio and filmed two instructional DVD’s through Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. In 2014, he released a critically acclaimed solo album Prospect Hill through Music Maker Relief Foundation.