Carolina Chocolate Drops co-founder visits Palmer on solo tour

WASILLA — Acoustic artists like Dom Flemons are tailor-made for the cozy confines of Vagabond Blues in Palmer, especially when those artists are equally proficient on instruments ranging from the banjo and harmonica to the bones, fife and jug.

Flemons, a founding member of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, returns for a solo visit to Vagabond Blues for one show at 7:30 p.m. Saturday to feature his new album “Prospect Hill.” He also plays at the Sydney Laurence Theater in Anchorage tonight (Friday, Dec. 4) at 7:30 p.m.

Flemons and the Chocolate Drops last visited Alaska in 2012.

“I’m looking forward to playing Vagabond Blues again,” Flemons, 33, said in a phone interview. “It’s such an intimate space — a wonderful setting to share music and stories.”

With the Chocolate Drops, Flemons and fellow band mates Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson revived and extended the tradition of the African-American string bands of the 1920s and ’30s. But Flemons has since struck out on his own. “Prospect Hill,” released in 2014 with the North Carolina-based Music Maker Relief Foundation, is his third solo album but his first since leaving the group.

On “Prospect Hill,” Flemons sings and plays the banjo, guitar, bones, harmonica, fife and jug. The album captures his interest in southern folk, ragtime, blues, spirituals and early jazz, while offering original pieces as well. It is Americana music in one of its purest forms.

“Folks can expect to hear old time music, country blues, hokum and some Carolina Piedmont fingerpicking,” Flemons said of his Alaska concerts. “The power of the solo performance is something I have never forgotten.”

Flemons grew up in Arizona, earned a degree in English from Northern Arizona University and spent a lot of time playing festivals and busking street corners. In 2005, he attended the inaugural Black Banjo Gathering held in North Carolina, where he met Giddens. He currently makes his home in North Carolina.

He is a student of music history, and said the continued popularity of Americana and acoustic folk is entering an interesting age.

“I think people are drawn to Americana music as a way to reclaim American ideals and the American idea,” Flemons said. “With folk music in general — it has proliferated — and there is some interesting acoustic music out there now.

“Some of that (folk music) is quite esoteric, but I like to keep it to the raw stuff."

Tickets are $29.25. Contact CenterTix at 263-ARTS or visit https://alaskapac.centertix.net for more information.

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com