Black Cowboys

On his third solo album, one of the founders of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops explores the history of African-American pioneers in the Old West on an 18-song set of country blues, plaintive field hollers, old-time square-dance music and cowboy poetry. It's the first collection of its kind, a scholarly and painstakingly researched exercise in reclaiming an overlooked heritage, as set out in a fascinating 40-page booklet. Who knew that the first recording of ‘Home on the Range’ – arguably the most celebrated cowboy song of all time – was made by a black bartender deep in the heart of Texas in 1908? Yet this is far more than merely a historical project and Flemons’ passionate relationship with his material is evident in his evocative vocals, authentically backed by guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, kazoo and cow ‘rhythm’ bones. Alongside the traditional songs, he contributes several potent compositions of his own. ‘One Dollar Bill’ is about the portrayal of black cowboys in Hollywood Westerns; ‘He's a Lone Ranger’ tells the story of Bass Reeves, an escaped slave who became the first African-American Deputy US Marshal west of the Mississippi; and ‘Steel Pony Blues’ is a tribute to a black Arizonan cowboy known as ‘Deadwood Dick’.