Jim McGuire
Washburn (left) and Fleck are touring with their 2-year-old son.
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn are not only two of the most accomplished banjo players in the world, but they are also a duo in life. On Sept. 10, the husband-wife team will hit the stage at the Union Theater, celebrating their wide-ranging musical tastes and the beginning of a new touring partnership.
Fleck, who has a musical voice like no other, is known as the leader of the virtuosic Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, an occasional Phish and Dave Matthews Band sideman and a frequent collaborator of jazz legend Chick Corea. Washburn is renowned for her unique clawhammer banjo style, her dynamic vocal prowess and merging old-time songwriting with Chinese lyrics.
Fleck and Washburn have released two records: full-length debut Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn and a companion EP, Banjo Banjo. They’ll be traveling with their 2-year-old son, Juno, and donating all of their merchandise proceeds to the River Alliance of Wisconsin, including raffling off a banjo used that night.
Isthmus spoke with Fleck and Washburn on the phone to discuss their collaboration, the banjo, staying true to their artistic vision and connecting with local charities.
With differing backgrounds with the banjo, how did you determine what style you would play as a duo?
Washburn: I really sprouted wings and flew in the old-time tradition — Appalachian music. My first six years on the road were with an all-girl string band called Uncle Earl. My role in that band was just to support the fiddle tunes by playing the banjo. I also was one of four singers in the group. In my own music that I was doing on the side I was really developing my own songwriting on the banjo and also a particular breed of English and Chinese music that I really love.
Fleck: I’ve been playing for 30, 40 years. And I’ve always been interested in the intricate part of the banjo, learning to play fast and learning to play it with a lot of variety. I’ve also been very interested in incorporating the banjo into places that it normally wouldn’t be heard. That gives me a lot of opportunities to collaborate with people from different walks of life. I always try to be myself when I’m playing.
It’s not like we’re trying to be like banjo missionaries, but we do love sharing the banjo. And we’re trying to find a way to show people what we hear when we’re up close to our banjos.
We play a lot of different banjos on our tour. We have seven or eight on most tours, and there’s others on the bus that don’t get taken inside of the venue. We play ukulele banjos, baritone banjos, cello banjos and our regular banjos. But in the context of expressing ourselves artistically it’s not just show-and-tell; we’re trying to present our point of view and express ourselves while showing off this instrument that we love.
How has the banjo progressed since you’ve been playing? How do you feel about its use in music today?
Fleck: Having like a lot of half-assed banjo playing on a lot of pop records — I don’t care about that. But having some great banjo playing on some pop records, that’s really cool. So if somebody’s really expressing themselves through the banjo, I enjoy it. If they’re using it to try to lend authenticity to music that isn’t truly authentic, then I don’t like it. It’s good banjos that I’m interested in, and people who play from their own point of view. I love that. I love people carrying on traditions, too, and I feel like that’s not my path because I’m very creative in my essence. I don’t want to play another person’s music. I want to play my own music.
What cultures are the most important to you when writing an original piece of music or putting together a new live show?
Fleck: If I’m excited about who I’m playing with, then I’m interested in it being a really spontaneous, natural experience. For me, the experience of playing with a lot of different musicians and cultures and styles means that I’m kind of like a gumbo of musical ideas, and they’re all in my musical consciousness. When you take a sip of a good gumbo, you don’t necessarily go, “Oh, now I’m tasting the rice, now I’m tasting the sausage, now I’m tasting the spices.” You have different bites that have whatever is in them.
Washburn: I have a longstanding dedication to exploring Chinese culture and Chinese music. Some of the songs I write are actually in Chinese, and I have collaborators — wonderful collaborators in China and in the States — and we do some of that on our banjos. That’s a big part of what I do and what I care about.
There’s a fantastic balance between simplicity and complexity in your music as a duo. How do you accomplish that? And how does Abigail’s voice fit into what you’re doing?
Fleck: Well this is very vocal music. The instrumental songs are more occasional. So Abby’s voice is at the center of this, and the fact that a voice of her quality is surrounded by a pair of banjos — and that we’re creating music around that voice that’s actually very sparse, but complex — makes the music very unique, I believe. Some of the songs we do you could hear them with a drum set and a whole band playing, and that would work on the radio better, but this is a natural expression of who we both are.
At each stop on your tour you’ll be donating the proceeds from your merchandise to a nonprofit in that city. How did this idea emerge?
Washburn: I think the true genesis of it was Juno being born. Traveling town to town, there’s this new perspective you get on the world. There’s this whole new empathy that I feel for every single human being in the whole world. There’s a sense of hope and purpose that we get from connecting with people who are doing work that we think is really valuable to humanity. It just makes you feel like good things are happening all the time, and we get to be a part of it.