Dom Flemons – Making American Music: The Smithsonian Sessions

GRAMMY Award-winning musician, multi-instrumentalist, and music scholar Dom Flemons, known as The American Songster, has played a central role in bringing Black American roots music into contemporary consciousness. Following his two touchstone releases on Smithsonian Folkways, Flemons returns with Making American Music: The Smithsonian Sessions, the first album of roots music to be recorded on historic instruments from the collection of the National Museum of American History. Performing solo and with his new all-star Black string band The Traveling Wildfires, as well as longtime Smithsonian staff, Flemons breathes new life into guitars played by Elizabeth Cotten and Mississippi John Hurt, quills made by Joe Patterson, and more, through his original compositions and traditional songs written over two centuries. Liner notes by Flemons and Smithsonian curator and co-producer John Troutman illuminate the instruments, repertoire, and creative process behind this extraordinary convergence of American songcraft, musicianship, and sound.

Disc 1

1. Shultz's Dream
2. Sourwood Mountain (John Brown's Dream)
3. Bankhead Blues
4. Long Journey Home
5. My Baby Said Yes
6. Traveling Shoes
7. DC House Party
8. Island
9. Country Quills
10. Lost River Blues
11. Star-Spangled Banner
12. Briggs' Jig
13. Night and Day
14. Pay Day
15. Blues Jumped a Rabbit
16. Bye Bye Baby Blues
17. San Francisco Bay Blues
18. Desert Sunrise
19. Mother's Last Word to Her Son
20. Piedmont Picker's Choice
21. Take Me Back to Bronzeville

Label: Smithsonian Folkways

Catalog: 40272

Genre: Rock