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    On Traveling Wildfire, Dom Flemons Rediscovers His Own Voice

    GRAMMY Award-winning musician and scholar Dom Flemons will release his anticipated new album, Traveling Wildfire, on March 24. Produced by Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Show, Lucero), Traveling Wildfire is Flemons’ most personal album to-date as he refocuses on his songwriting–reflecting on his recent epiphanies and spiritual evolution as well as on the current social climate. Across these fifteen tracks—a collection of both originals and new renditions of traditional folk songs—Flemons gently conveys his purposeful message as he addresses fundamental themes of Black love, survival, legacy and growth, while a sonic atmosphere builds in intensity from a serene and grounded beginning.

    Traveling Wildfire is not only a statement of my personal travel experiences but also a metaphor for rebirth in the wake of destruction," says Flemons. "It reminded me that the album is in its own way a statement about emerging from the depths of uncertainty to find a new relevance during this unprecedented moment in modern history.”

    Traveling Wildfire follows 2018’s Grammy-nominated Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys, of which No Depression praised, “He lives and breathes his art. This is an audible extension of the heart and soul and wonders within, a desire to capture the life beat of the original arrangement and melodies of songs.”

    Flemons is a widely celebrated songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, radio host and music historian. Throughout his esteemed career, he has received a Grammy Award, been nominated for two Emmy Awards, received an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University, won the 2020 U.S. Artists Fellowship Award for the Traditional Arts, served on the Board of Directors for the Steve Martin Banjo Prize, Folk Alliance International and the Music Maker Relief Foundation, and was elected as a Governor on the Board of Directors for the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Recording Academy.

    An avid collaborator, Flemons has worked with a wide variety of artists. He released four albums as part of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Grammy Award-winning group he created with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson in 2005, and has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Tyler Childers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Billy Strings, Vince Gill, Allison Russell, Taj Mahal and many more.

    Traveling Wildfire is out on March 24, 2023 and is available for pre-order now.

    On Traveling Wildfire, Dom Flemons Rediscovers His Own Voice | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings