“We’ve come a long way in six years, let’s say that,” says Washburn with a sideways glance at her husband. They also found that evaluating each other’s ideas in the rehearsal room was emotionally complicated and they readily agree that the follow-up, Echo in the Valley, released in 2017, was a step forward for them as collaborators. “It was stupid,” agrees Fleck, turning to his wife. It was a lot to ask of ourselves – it was dumb.” “We had our first baby,” says Washburn, “and then started writing songs together and recording an album together and touring together. The best classical music gigs happening this week.
“People in China would always ask me about American culture,” she says, “but I was raised in suburban pop-radio culture and really didn’t know how to talk to people about American culture.” Improbably, it was through her frequent visits to China in the 1990s that her interest in American folk music was kindled. As a young college student, she says she became “obsessed with learning Chinese, because people who speak a different language have a brain that works differently” and had initially planned to train as a lawyer in China. But she too has taken the banjo into new spaces, particularly fusing it with Chinese musical culture.
Though some 20 years Fleck’s junior, musically Washburn is the more old school of the pair, a vocalist of rare power and authenticity who has been central in the recent revival of “old time” American folk music, accompanying her soulful voice in the more traditional claw-hammer banjo style. “I think he named me Béla so that I would learn to fight.”īanjo’s golden couple are seated side by side, speaking to The Irish Times from their Nashville home, and they are immediately likeable, warm and down to earth, like musicians not stars, despite the sell-out world tours, the top-selling albums and the shelfloads of awards. “You know that Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue?” he asks. In fact his father disappeared from his life soon after he was born, leaving only the name he gave his son. “Delusions of banjeur!” Fleck shoots back, quick as a flash. He was named for Hungarian composer Béla Bartok, so did his parents have delusions of musical grandeur for their son? The 61-year-old holds the distinction of being nominated in more Grammy categories than any other instrumentalist, winning an impressive 15 times to date. To the latter group, Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck are banjo royalty whose marriage in 2009 united not just two of Nashville’s leading performers, but also two distinct approaches to the instrument.įleck is generally regarded as the banjo’s finest living exponent, a dazzling virtuoso, playing in the three-finger style of banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs and one who, as a solo performer and with his band the Flecktones, has repeatedly lifted the banjo out of its bluegrass comfort zone. But for those whose ears are attuned to its unique sound, a banjo is a wondrous thing, an instrument with an ancient lineage that has been central to the development of American music, and thereby to much of western folk and popular music. For the haters, this odd-looking cross between a drum and guitar is an object of ridicule, an archaic contraption associated with hillbillies and black face minstrels, useful today only as the butt of musician in-jokes.
The banjo has to be the “Marmite” of musical instruments.