American Songster Radio

Songs We Love is a series and a podcast that looks at the stories behind some of the songs we're playing on our new music discovery station, WUNC Music . On this episode we're featuring 'He's A Lone Ranger' by Dom Flemons. It's a song off of his latest record Black Cowboys. The record redefines the image of the American Cowboy with songs like the one featured here. It's one Dom wrote after hearing the story of Bass Reeves, who was born into slavery in 1838. Listen to the episode here: https:/

The second season of Dom Flemon's American Songster Radio podcast is released today, Friday, October 26. In this episode of American Songster Radio , Dom discusses the song “Black Woman” and revisits the lives of figures like Bridget “Biddy” Mason and “Stagecoach” Mary Fields. He also shares his own version of “Black Woman,” performed live on stage.

This is episode two from season two of American Songster Radio .

This is episode three from season two of American Songster Radio .

This is epsidoe four from season two of American Songster Radio .

This is episode five from season two of American Songster Radio .

This is the sixth and final episode from season two of American Songster Radio .

The cowboy is an icon of American culture. But the popular image of the white cowboy skews our perception of what kind of Americans did—and do—cowboying work. The American West after the Civil War was a dynamic and ethnically diverse place. As many as a quarter of the cowboys during the frontier era were African Americans. Remembering these Americans is crucial to understanding the west as a region and the United States as a country. As author Mike Searles stated in a 2010 NPR interview , “Many

When Dom Flemons set out to make his 2014 release Prospect Hill , he knew he wanted it to be an eclectic record. For variety, he assembled two different bands, each one a fantasy line up of top players.

Young banjo players Jerron Paxton and Kaia Kater hail from places that are pretty far removed from the American South. But as they learned their instruments and connected with banjo mentors, they found old-time music well beyond its reputed home region. Paxton and Kater both started out playing bluegrass music. “I was a little fat boy in Compton with a straw hat and overalls trying to be like Earl Scruggs,” Paxton recalls. The popularity of bluegrass made it easy to find, even in California. The