PETE SEEGER TO DOM FLEMONS: MY GRANDFATHER AND WOODY GUTHRIE BOTH PLAYED THE BONES

BACKSTAGE CONVERSATION WITH SEEGER PIVOTAL IN FLEMONS’ CARRYING ON TRADITION

HEADLINING DATES & OPENING SLOTS FOR OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW CONTINUE

Backstage at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger introduced Dom Flemons to Pete Seeger, an enthralling moment for the young American Songster. The elder told Flemons, “I like the way you play the bones. My grandfather played the bones.” (The bones are a pair of cow bones played together as a percussion instrument, related to the spoons. Old Crow Medicine Show was also backstage and that was the first time that they had met Seeger; Flemons and OCMS will play shows together in November.) Seeger also told the rising folk artist that Woody Guthrie used to play the bones but Flemons could not find a recording of Woody playing the bones until TIME Magazine debuted this duet with Sonny Terry from the new album ‘My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town’ earlier this year.

Flemons has been playing the bones since receiving a set as a gift at North Carolina’s Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention in 2006. Flemons’ new album ‘Prospect Hill’ features “Marching Up To Prospect Hill,” a tribute to harmonica great Sonny Terry and harmonica and bones player JC Burris (Terry’s nephew) based on a video of the duo shot by Seeger.

Flemons is the American songster, a master of a variety of African-American musical forms and digging to a depth and breadth not seen since the emergence of Taj Mahal. Flemons plays guitar, banjo, quills, and percussion as well as the bones and dig deeply into hokum tunes, jug band material, New Orleans jazz, ballads, original folk songs, rhythm and blues, ragtime, spirituals, and fife and drum music.

Peter Cooper of the Tennessean recently profiled Flemons.

Flemons expounds on his idea of the American songster here.

Dom Flemons Tour Dates

October 15 – Rocky Mount, VA – Harvester Performance Center
October 17 – Black Mountain, NC – Lake Eden Arts Festival
October 18 – Black Mountain, NC – Lake Eden Arts Festival
October 19 – Charlottesville, VA – The Southern
October 23 – Easton, MD – Avalon Theatre
October 24 – New York, NY – City Winery (Wesley Stace's Cabinet of Wonders)
November 4 – Minneapolis, MN – Cedar Cultural Center
November 6 – Urbana Champaign, IL - Krannert Center
November 10 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
November 12 – Blacksburg, VA – Burruss Auditorium (Virginia Tech) *
November 13 – Ashland, KY – Paramount Arts Center *
November 14 - Louisville, KY - Palace *
November 15 - Memphis, TN - Orpheum *
November 20 - Athens, GA -The Classic Center *
November 21 - Birmingham, AL - Alabama Theatre *

* With Old Crow Medicine Show