Designed by Dom Flemons “The American Songster” and made by Jeff Menzies. This limited series of 10 banjos are being offered on a first come first serve basis.
A portion of the proceeds of this series will be placed toward the building of a community center in the inner city of Kingston, Jamaica where community members of all ages will receive support in developing skills in instrument making, providing them with a skill set in instrument making and repair.
Once there have been 10 purchases the banjo will no longer be offered for sale. These banjos are pre-ordered and are made in the order sales have been placed. Each instrument will have a serial number out of 10.
-Jamaican Blue Mahoe 27” scale neck.
-Available in a 1 3/8” or 1 1/2” nut width.
-Bone nut.
-Maple and mango rim.
-Hand painted by Jeff Menzies and motifs designed by Dom Flemons. Sankofa birds and decorative symbols
-Jamaican goat skin head.
-Purple heart hand made pegs, designed specifically for this series.
-Purple Heart tailpiece with natural gut tail gut.
-17th Century yellow pine bridge. This wood is salvaged from an old building in Port Royal, Jamaica.
-Aquila Minstrel strings.
Banjo will ship out to their new owners before February 1st, 2023
GRAMMY Award Winner, Two-Time EMMY Nominee, 2020 U.S. Artists Fellow Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Chicago area with his family. He has branded the moniker The American Songster® since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of early American popular music. Flemons is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, actor, slam poet, music scholar, historian, and record collector. He is considered an expert player on the banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife and rhythm bones. Flemons was selected for the prestigious 2020 United States Artists Fellowship Award for the Traditional Arts category, supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Flemons last studio album, titled Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys on Smithsonian Folkways, received a GRAMMY Nomination for “Best Folk Album” at the 61st GRAMMY Awards. This recording is part of the African American Legacy Recordings series, co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Steve Martin Banjo Prize.