Dom Flemons
Album: Prospect Hill
Label: Dixie Frog
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.domflemons.com

I guess it was a bit of a shock when Dom left the scintillating Carolina Chocolate Drops outfit, but he's sprung back into the recording studio now to record a solo album, Prospect Hill. This record turns out to be the most apt exposition of his credo, and ample proof of how much he deserves the tag of The American Songster, in his self-appointed role of pulling from traditions of old-time folk music to create new sounds. In bringing together all the diverse strands of this music, Dom unifies them into one massive corpus, at the same time rendering these individual strands and sub-genres virtually indistinguishable from one another both in value and effect. They also sound thoroughly contemporary despite consistent and unwavering use of authentic instruments and modes of expression.

It's a handy trick to be able to pull off, but Dom has the courage of his convictions and the grounding in all these musics, so that original dance tunes and blues and ragtime nuggets from way back when are equally as valid as fresh-minted self-penned numbers (which, interestingly, comprise all but a small handful of the tracks). Indeed, some of the originals are so darned authentic they're nigh impossible to tell apart from the covers - take the Cooder-esque Hot Chicken, the honky-tonk yodel of San Francisco Baby, the harmonica rumba of Georgia Drumbeat, the almost-cajun Sonora Two-Step, the weird primitivism of Grotto Beat, the sprightly Marching Up To Prospect Hill, the deliciously gruff, scat-riddled 'Til The Seas Run Dry, all of which comfortably rub shoulders with the fun Tampa Red number But They Got It Fixed Right On. And then, right in the centre of the disc, there's the lovely Too Long (I've Been Gone), which smacks of the late-60s troubadour and sports some wonderfully tender and lyrical fingerpicking. Absolutely delicious, every single cut.

Yeah, there's a tremendous immediacy about Dom's performances. For this is roots music with a vengeance, delivered like there's no tomorrow but also like there's nothin' but the present. Dom's multi-instrumental versatility (banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, fife, bones, bass drum, snare drum and quills) is typically placed at the service of his gift for integrating and celebrating the traditions of blues, folk, jug band, string band, marching-band, jazz and ragtime - every one of which musical disciplines he embraces with glee and abandon; he's a music maker par excellence.

David Kidman