On Saturday, January 31st, Grammy award winner, Dom Flemons will be playing a free show at The Joslyn Art Museum.
In the early 2000's, Flemons, along with MacArthur Genius Award winner Rhiannon Giddens, (OST Sinners) and Justin Robinson formed the Grammy Award winning band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Known as, The Drops, the band reignited an exploration of Black String Band Music a/k/a "Old Time Music." This genre includes banjos, an instrument that originated in Africa, bluegrass, country, and folk music.
There is a wonderful documentary on Netflix / YouTube about the band, [
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). The "art" of calling a square dance originated with Afro-Americans in the Carolinas.
- Beyonce's 2024 album, Cowboy Carter, was inspired, in part, by the Drops and Giddens is the opening musician on Beyonce's album.
As the band explored the role of AA in Americana music, Flemons put out a CD on the Smithsonian Records label, Folkways, entitled Black Cowboys. Flemons has an encyclopedic music knowledge base from 1850 - 1940. Research for his accompanying book found that 25% of American cowboys were black and wrote songs like, Home On the Range and Goodbye Old Paint.
He is a fascinating fellow and a brilliant musician and entertainer.
While the show is free and open to everyone, we will be working to bring young Hispanic and Afro-American people to the show as a part of African American History Month. Space is limited to 100 seats. As a part of his show, Flemons will be showing the film, The Bronze Buckaroo. So the show will be multimedia including music, entertainment, history, and film.
Since the show is free, we would appreciate any assistance promoting the show. This event is hosted by Joslyn Art Museum in conjunction with M&TOlson, Pacific St Blues & Americana. Support from The Great Plains Black History Museum, North Omaha Music and Arts, Blues Society of Omaha, and others
Also check out other Entertainment events in Omaha, Music events in Omaha, Arts events in Omaha.
