Watch the official music video for "Steel Pony Blues" by Dom Flemons, from Black Cowboys out March 23th, 2018 on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

"I wrote this song about the amazing life of Nat Love, known as 'Deadwood Dick.' In 1854, he was born into slavery in Tennessee, and at a young age he made his way out West to work on a ranch in Holbrook, Arizona. By 1890, he retired from the ranch and began to work on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad as a Pullman Porter. In his 1907 autobiography he wrote: 'I always say to the traveling American, "See America"...I have seen a large part of America, and am still seeing it, but the life of a hundred years would be all too short to see our country...' I feel honored to have followed in the footsteps of Nat Love, in his great admiration for the United States."