Dom Flemons – Black Cowboys
Smithsonian Folkways – 30 March 2018
It is all too rare that one gets the opportunity to review a release which transcends merely the music on offer. Dom Flemons presents Black Cowboys is one such offering, and what a visual and auditory delight it is.
Perhaps best known on these shores as co-founder of GRAMMY Award Winners the Carolina Chocolate Drops, whom he left to pursue his solo career in 2014, or more recently through his collaboration with Martin Simpson, the artist known as The American Songster, Dom Clemons, is, in truth, one very multi-talented human being. In addition to being acknowledged as an expert player of banjo, guitar, harmonica, fife, percussion, rhythm bones and quills (panpipes), Flemons is also a music scholar, anthropologist, historian and record collector, attributes which he employs to full advantage on this release.
Dom Flemons presents Black Cowboys pays tribute to the music, culture, and the complex history of the golden era of the Wild West, taking the listener on an edifying and illuminating journey with ‘songs from the trails to the rails.’ But this is far more than simply a collection of songs from the Old West, the record sheds light on the prominent but often-overlooked, ignored, and even at times white-washed, role that African-American, Native American and Mexican men and women pioneers played in westward expansion.
The venture has been some two years in the making after Dom dreamt up the idea following his noticing a book called The Negro Cowboys by Phillip Durham, whilst driving on his own pilgrimage of sorts from North Carolina to his home state of Arizona. Further inspired by his family’s roots in the region, and a growing realisation that discussion of the Great Migration of African-American people is usually characterised as a movement from the Deep South to the Midwestern urban centres of the North, rather than the Western Migration from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas or Texarkana regions, he decided to make this album. The fact that he is of African, Hispanic and Native American descent also renders him ideally suited to curate this project, which 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 60 or so minutes of music on this single CD features traditional songs and standards, arranged by Flemons, in addition to a handful of original, self-penned songs which recreate with unerring accuracy the music of that era. It is clear from the album’s opening track, Black Woman, a field holler collected by John A. Lomax in the 1930s, which honours the contributions made by the thousands of frontier African-American women, that Flemons’s desire to capture and emulate the power, lifeblood and heart and soul of the original melodies and arrangements is at the core of this recording.
A few of the standards included have narratives which written evidence proves were both associated with and influenced by Black cowboys and are housed in The Library Of Congress – such as Home On The Range, Goodbye Old Paint, and album closer Old Chisholm Trail, a seminal song commemorating the first major cattle trail in the USA and delivered here in an intense style which underlines the influence that such music had on later developments such as blues and rap.
Other standards from the cowboy repertoire are seemingly presented purely with the intention of showing how good cowboy music can be; Tyin’ Knots In The Devil’s Tail, Little Joe The Wrangler and The March Of The Red River Valley, here offered as an adaptation of the classic cowboy song Red River Valley into a traditional fife-and-drum melody which pays tribute to all the African Americans who have served in the military from the Revolutionary War to the present day, including the ‘buffalo soldiers’, the original pioneers of the American West.
One claim made by Flemons is that elements of the Texas songster tradition have their roots in older cowboy songs, and that leading proponents such as Lead Belly, Henry ‘Ragtime Texas’ Thomas and Lightnin’ Hopkins all have links with cowboys, but have never been positioned within the cowboy music milieu, and three tracks here Po Howard/Gwine Dig A Hole To Put The Devil In, Charmin’ Betsy and Texas Easy Street certainly have very much the blues feel usually related to the musicians named.
Going Down The Road Feelin’ Bad, Knox County Stomp and John Henry Y Los Vanqueros owe more of a nod to Country & Western and String Band Music sound, in keeping with a slight Tex-Mex feel that would be heard in the cow camps on the range. The latter showcasing the cow “rhythm” bones and the fiddle, both of which have deep roots in the early African American minstrel shows. Toe-tapping stuff of the highest calibre.
The three originals were composed to fill in gaps within the story where research could not uncover songs. Thus One Dollar Bill refers to the cowboy as portrayed by Hollywood, Steel Pony Blues tells the story of Deadwood Dick, a black cowboy who became a Pullman Porter, whilst He’s A Lone Ranger recounts the incredible life of lawman Bass Reeves, who is probably the inspiration for the fictional character, The Lone Ranger, chugs along irresistibly. The spoken word Of Proc is a powerful testament to the fact that on the Western ranches and trail drives, a man was judged by his abilities and work ethic, not by his race or the colour of his skin.
Whilst, for the most part, the album is pretty stripped down, a talented array of musicians, Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart, Jimbo Mathus, Brian Farrow, Dan Sheehy, Dante Pope, Stu Cole add greatly to the overall sound, and mention must be made of the extensive liner notes and cover art, both of which are impeccable, the former giving references, further reading and visual suggestions and links that could keep one occupied for many a long hour.
Musically, this release should appeal to those already au fait with classic cowboy music, together with those for whom it is a new experience, and without a doubt, it stands as an excellent album in its own right. Where it really succeeds, however, is in the overall package; in its introduction to the entire concept of the African-American West, chronicling the role of those involved with a sharp focus, and in its creation of a historical artefact which both entertains and educates.
This is an impressive and important contribution to the oeuvre of American music, which manages to resonate with those for whom the first-hand experience of the subject matter is far-removed; it will surely become an enduring testament to the Black cowboys and what they represent.
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