Common Fence Music and Norman Bird Sanctuary will present songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, 2020 U.S. Artists Fellow, Grammy Award Winner, and Two-Time Emmy Nominee, Dom Flemons on Friday, July 30 at 7:00 PM as part of their Outdoor Live Series at Norman Bird Sanctuary; 583 Third Beach Road; Middletown, RI 02840. Tickets are available at the Norman Bird Sanctuary website or at the Common Fence Music Website for $40 general admission.
GRAMMY Award Winner and Two-Time EMMY Nominee, 2020 U.S. Artists Fellow Dom Flemons has branded the moniker The American Songster® since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, music scholar, historian, and record collector. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife and rhythm bones. Flemons was selected for the prestigious 2020 United States Artists Fellowship Award for the Traditional Arts category which was generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
In 2020, Dom Flemons re-issued his album titled Prospect Hill: “The American Songster Omnibus on Omnivore Recordings. His original song “I Can’t Do It Anymore” was released on a limited edition wax cylinder recording. Recently, he released a cover of the Elmore James classic “Shake Your Money Maker”, recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, alongside Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band and featured guest, legendary guitarist Steve Cropper. He played his six-string banjo (Big Head Joe), Quills, and Bones on Tyler Childers groundbreaking album Long Violent History and played jug alongside Brandford Marsalis on the soundtrack to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom on Netflix.
In 2019, Flemons was chosen to be a “Spotlight Artist” at the Soundtrack of America event curated by the World Renowned Quincy Jones and EMMY Award Winning Director Steve McQueen. He was featured in the Bank of America and Ken Burns ‘Country Music’ commercial that airs regularly on PBS. Also, In 2018, Flemons released a solo album titled Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys on Smithsonian Folkways and received a GRAMMY Nomination for “Best Folk Album” at the 61st GRAMMY Awards. This recording is part of the African American Legacy Recordings series, co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
The Black Cowboys album peaked at #4 and has spent over 55 weeks on the BILLBOARD Bluegrass Charts and Flemons was nominated for “Artist of The Year” at the International Folk Music Awards, “Best Acoustic Album” at the Blues Music Awards, and “Best Folk Album” at the Liberia Awards. He won a Wammie Awards for “Best Folk Album”, won a Living Blues Award for “New Recordings/ Traditional & Acoustic album”, and received the ASCAP Foundation Paul Williams “Loved the Liner Notes” Award.
Flemons had his major solo debut on the Grand Ole Opry, on a night with Carrie Underwood and Old Crow Medicine Show and was included in the American Currents Class of 2018 exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame Exhibit alongside Reba McEntire, Jeannie Seely, Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Kane Brown, Dan Auerbach, Dan + Shay, John Prine and more.
At the 2018 National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Mid-America Awards Flemons was nominated for TWO EMMY’s for PBS Episode: Songcraft Presents Dom Flemons and for the co-written song “Good Old Days” with Songwriter Ben Arthur. He was the first Artist-in-Residence at the “Making American Music Internship Program” at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in the summer of 2018. In 2017, Flemons served as the only U.S. performer at the Rainforest Music Festival in Kuching, Malaysia. He was featured on David Holt’s State of Music on PBS and performed as bluesman Joe Hill Louis on CMT’s original television show “Sun Records”.
The Norman Bird Sanctuary and Common Fence Music are presenting an outdoor summer concert series featuring nationally renowned musicians performing in one of the Newport area’s most scenic outdoor spaces. This summer concert series brings together two Aquidneck Island nonprofit organizations for a diverse lineup of outdoor performances at the Norman Bird Sanctuary.
The Summer 2021 Outdoor Concert Series is sponsored by a generous grant from the Rhode Island Foundation, and support from DiscoverNewport and the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts. The Outdoor Concert Series began on Friday, June 18 with a sold-out show by Sean Rowe and continues through Saturday, October 2. General Admission tickets are on sale for $40 per person for Dom Flemons and can be purchased at the Norman Bird Sanctuary event site
