As a resolute preservationist, storyteller, and instrumentalist, Dom Flemons has long set himself apart by finding forgotten folk songs and making them live again. His work has been recognized with a GRAMMY, two Emmy nominations, a USA Fellowship Award, and inclusion in an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. For Traveling Wildfire, his first new album since 2018’s Black Cowboys and second for Smithsonian Folkways, he turns to an important, overlooked voice that he's proudly rediscovered: his own.

Raised in Phoenix, Arizona, Flemons comes from a family of civil rights leaders, Tuskegee Airmen, and preachers who were prominent figures in the Black community of Arizona. His father, a former basketball player and member of the Black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, introduced him to classic country music. As a kid listening to local radio, Flemons then learned more about country legends like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. In college, he took an online class on country music history and first heard the music of DeFord Bailey and Charley Pride. That discovery ignited a passion for finding other African American performers with country songs in their repertoire.

After graduating from Northern Arizona University (which presented him with an honorary doctorate in 2022), Flemons moved to North Carolina and co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a string band of young Black musicians who won a GRAMMY for their 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig. After leaving the group at the end of 2013, he established a solo career that led him to collaborate with hundreds of artists in the American roots music scene. 

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez