Dom Flemons at FidPick, South Park, Lawrence KS (2026-08-23)

Old Cindy Gal (on harmonica and bones, traditional, Joe Thompson Piedmont version)
Charmin’ Betsy (on quills, Henry “Ragtime” Thomas cover)
O Babe, It Ain’t No Lie / Railroad Bill / Cannonball Blues (instrumental Piedmont medley)
Slow Dance with You (on his Traveling Wildfire album)
Shultz’s Dream (guitar and vocal)
Til’ the Seas Run Dry (from his Prospect Hill album)
Black Woman aka The Wild Ox Moan (Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys)
He’s a Lone Ranger (about Bass Reeves, in a Lightnin’ Hopkins style boogie)
Nobody Wrote It Down
Pay Day (Mississippi John Hurt cover, on ladder brace guitar) 
Yonder Comes the Blues (Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey cover)
Old Corn Liquor (on banjo, Joe and Odell Thompson cover)
> John Henry > Oh! Susanna
Lost River Blues (collaboration w/Yo-Yo Ma)
Po’ Black Sheep (traditional; middle Tennessee banjo player Nathan Frazier and fiddler Frank Patterson version)
There’s a Brownskin Girl Down the Road Somewhere (Eck Robertson cover; adapted on harmonica in style of DeFord Bailey) 
Encore: 
We Are Almost Down to the Shore (Jimmie Strothers cover)

Aug 29 Lakeside Chautauqua Lakeside, OH
Sep 3 Sigal Music Museum Greenville, SC
Sep 5 Davidson College Davidson, NC
Sep 10-12 Timpanogos Storytelling Festival Lehi, UT
Sep 18 Museum of Making Music Carlsbad, CA
Sep 19-20 Pickin’ In The Pines Festival Flagstaff, AZ
Sep 24 Marathon Center for the Performing Arts Findlay, OH
Sep 26 Essex County Museum Tappahannock, VA
Sep 27 Arts Quarter Music Series Williamsburg, VA
Sep 28 Caffe Lena Saratoga Springs, NY
Oct 2 ArtYard Frenchtown, NJ
Oct 3 Lang Performing Arts Center Swarthmore, PA
Oct 4 Kable House York, PA
Oct 8-9 CU Folk and Roots Festival Urbana, IL
Oct 10 Cavefest Pelham, TN
Oct 14 The Momentary Bentonville, AR
Oct 17 Austin String Band Festival Austin, TX
Oct 23 Lane Series Burlington, VT
Nov 13 The Pyrle Greensboro, NC
Nov 14 The Millwald Wytheville, VA
Nov 19 FitzGerald’s Berwyn, IL
Nov 20 Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill Grand Rapids, MI
Jan 25-30 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering Elko, NV

The event was the 45^th Annual Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships and the featured artist was the Arizona-born, Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist Dom Flemons, best known for his time in influential Durham, NC traditional group, Carolina Chocolate Drops.

Locally known simply as “FidPick”– the festival began in 1976 in Lawrence and originally was open only to county residents, but continued to evolve up to the state level, with that next chapter beginning in 1981.

The all-day festival was held in downtown’s South Park has since grown to feature two stages with nine individual and band contest categories (including Youth) but remains at its heart, a grassroots event celebrating traditional American acoustic music.

As for the Grammy Award-nominated Flemons, he’s gone on to make quite a solo reputation, familiarly known as “The American Songster” and also has an American Songster Radio Show (both named after his 2008 solo full-length).

Closing the festival as the headliner on the main Doug DuBois Harmony Stage, Flemons gave an eighty-five-minute performance that also doubled as a one-man history of American roots music that included folk, blues, country bluegrass, and gospel selections.

The history that prefaced most of the songs performed, never felt like a lecture (although we definitely felt more knowledgeable following) and, mixed with Flemons’ personable nature, related stories, and humor (along with his frequently changing instruments), all made the songs feel renewed and deserved of their place in the country’s musical history.

In addition to ‘looking the part’ (checked shirt, suspenders, and pork pie hat), the musical dexterity and Flemons’ skill to the craft, was the core success point. The various instruments and some re-interpreting of songs were not done as gimmicks; rather, as a way of sometimes updating while still honoring the original works. This was a purposeful reveal to show that even the earliest songs can still continue to evolve and breathe, to show a complete roadway, instead of being musical fragments.

The set began with “Old Cindy Gal”, a traditional song (but done in the Joe Thompson Piedmont version) and Flemons on harmonica and rhythm bones which he also briefly demonstrated how to play.

From there, it was “Charmin’ Betsy”, a Henry “Ragtime” Thomas cover played on quills (a variation of the pan flute) then following a blues medley, Flemons showcased several songs from his own albums.

Black Cowboys of the 1800s became a focus for a few pieces (one subject included fabled Sheriff Bass Reeves) and a bluesy, finger-picked Mississippi John Hurt cover played on a ladder brace guitar found Flemons being amused with the song’s opening verse, “I done all I can do, and I can’t get along with you. I’m gonna take you to your mama- Pay Day”.

The 2022 banjo piece, “Lost River Blues” was a collaboration done with classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his goat skin banjo wasn’t affected by the heat and humidity on “Po’ Black Sheep”, a traditional number done in a (still-vintage) middle Tennessee style.

“There’s a Brownskin Girl Down the Road Somewhere” was a 1929 cover of Texas fiddler Eck Robertson’s song but adapted to blues harp in the style of “The Harmonica Wizard” DeFord Bailey which would end the main set. Flemons bowed and flipped his hat, but the standing crowd applauded for one more.

Being a Sunday, the single-song encore turned to gospel with a Blind Jimmy Strothers cover of “We Are Almost Down to the Shore,” a song originally captured by folklorist John Lomax in 1936 Virginia. With Flemons himself currently recording on the Smithsonian Folkways label, it all seemed full circle.

Celebrating traditional American music, with a focus on Black History can be both entertaining and informative, as Dom Flemons proved with his multi-instrument expertise. Bringing those songs back to life and to greater attention, means we as citizens can better understand where that music has been, and where it still can go, as part of our nation’s unique story.