Dom Flemons - Prospect Hill

As a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dom Flemons specialised in reviving pre-war African-American string-band styles, and now expands his range to include jazz, blues and R&B. His former colleague Rhiannon Giddens has released an adventurous album reworking great American songs, but Flemons sounds as if he’s sitting on the front porch enjoying himself. This is a cheerfully varied set, on which he switches between guitar, harmonica, banjo and percussion, with help from equally classy musicians including multi-instrumentalist Guy Davis (though sadly not Martin Simpson, with whom he toured last year). There are some intriguing tracks here, including a revival of Native American fiddle music on Sonoran Church Two Step and the swinging weepie Have I Been Away Too Long?, now dressed up with electric guitar and saxophone. His own songs range from a good-natured tribute to New Orleans jazz to pleasantly unremarkable folk ballads.