More Tunes And Tales From Vegas: American Songster Radio Episode 14

When Dom Flemons first came across the story of African American songster Gus Cannon, one fact took him by surprise. "[Gus Cannon] was a blackface performer, but he was a black man," Flemons says, recalling his initial reaction. "How can this be? That you can have an African American man be a part of a type of entertainment that, when I’d read about it in books, they would say that it was demeaning to black people?" Dom pursued this question in his own historical research and eventually published an article on Cannon for Oxford American magazine (" Can You Blame Gus Cannon? " published in the fall of 2013). His account of Cannon’s life reveals a performer who manages to subvert stereotypes, even while working within the limitations set by a dominant culture. When Flemons plays songs from Cannon’s repertoire in concert, he often begins with a version of Cannon’s life story. "[Blackface minstrelsy] was the very first international phenomenon for American popular entertainment," Flemons