Tag: Bela Fleck
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones Forge Their Own Path
What’s on Béla Fleck’s mind?
Balloons.
Just the day before, his Nashville house was filled with them, as well as with a few dozen kids. It was the 6th birthday of the eldest of two children of the three-finger-style banjo maestro and his clawhammer-style counterpart, frequent recording and touring partner and wife Abigail Washburn.
But the days surrounding this have also had a party vibe. He’s been in rehearsals with his cohorts in the beloved jazz-and-way-beyond Flecktones, in preparation for a tour marking the band’s 30th birthday.
Working again with harmonica player/pianist Howard Levy, bassist Victor Wooten, and the singular electro-acoustic percussionist known as Futureman (a.k.a. Wooten’s brother Roy), digging deep into their group catalog of complex flights of fancy mixing daredevil chops, musical depth, and persistent whimsy has been a blast.
“They’re the same guys they were when I first met them,” he says, speaking from home. “Curious, interested, ever-expanding, ever-pulling me with them. There’s a very special bond we have together. I’m realizing it more and more as years go by, one of the great relationships in our lives, musically and personally.”
They’re even pulling out such rarely played and decidedly difficult gems as “Jekyll and Hyde (and Ted and Alice)” from the band’s second album, 1991’s Flight of the Cosmic Hippo. It’s challenging and exciting, enlivening the qualities that made this alchemical combo of characters special from the very start. Futureman, he says, is an “empath and enabler — musical enabler, brings consciousness underneath you.” Victor Wooten too. Levy is “the crazy ideas on top. He’s the brains of the outfit.”
Fleck’s role? “Somehow I thought I was the heart of it, limiting it but making it more understandable for the common man — I was the common man in the band, surrounded by these crazy guys.”
But with a moment to reflect on their collective history and achievements, he finds descriptions of the magic they work together to be elusive.
This is where the balloons come in.
“It has to have heart, has to have melodies, some harmonies,” says Fleck, who turns 61 in July. “Couldn’t just be a groove or a shred-fest. That’s the power of the band. The tunes are strong, good things to pour everyone’s musical power into. Like a balloon. It’s an empty piece of rubber. But these tunes I’d written, we filled them up with Futureman and Victor and Howard — the balloons get real handsome. With the balloons at the party, it occurred to me that you fill them up and they become joyful. That’s what this music is.”
They’ll be sharing that joy on the road now, including two shows of particular import. This 30th anniversary tour began with a big “Friends and Family” kickoff May 30 at Red Rocks near Denver, the friends and family here including Washburn, saxophonist Jeff Coffin, Dobro genius Jerry Douglas, and the Colorado Symphony. And on June 8 they will be taking a cherished headlining slot at the Hollywood Bowl’s vaunted Playboy Jazz Festival.
The Playboy slot is, to Fleck, a particularly meaningful recognition.
“It’s one of the neat things to being around 30 years,” he says of that booking. “From the start I was begging to play it and they said, ‘Yeah, we’ll put you on at noon’ and we’d play once every four years or so. Now we’re in the headlining slot and we’re legacy artists.”
Sure, the Flecktones have had several albums go to the top of the jazz sales and airplay charts and they have won two Grammy Awards for contemporary jazz album, with Outbound in 2000 and The Hidden Lands in 2006. And last year the band was given the prestigious Miles Davis Award by the Montreal International Jazz Festival. And Fleck has found himself partnering regularly on recordings and tours with some of the greats of jazz, one in particular in an ongoing partnership. “I’m playing with Chick Corea, which is ridiculous, on a regular basis,” he marvels, having just returned home from a tour with the ceaselessly groundbreaking pianist.
But, while belated acceptance in the jazz world is frustrating, he understands. See, banjo is pretty much standard in any jazz band… in 1919. In 2019, not so much. Even after 30 years of forging a path for banjo in modern jazz, Fleck remains singular. Asked about others doing anything comparable today, he’s kinda stumped.
He cites New Orleans’ veteran Don Vappie, but he’s generally in the mode of traditions going back to those earliest years of jazz. There’s Matt Davis, a converted jazz pianist who’s on the faculty of the University of Michigan. And there are others who use some jazz chops and sensibilities while not strictly playing that style of music, notably Tony Trischka, Noam Pikelny, Alison Brown, and Pat Cloud.
“But yeah,” he says. “They’re rare.”
Not to mention that the Flecktones as a whole is anything but standard jazz, with a truly eccentric approach and reach into a lot of styles. The 3-CD Little Worlds set from 2003 showed a boundless range that felt to some at once excitingly delightful and confounding.
On the other hand, not fitting in any category is par for the course for Fleck. He’s made a career of it, holding the record for the most categories in which he has been nominated for Grammys, 16 total. The most recent win is a best folk album trophy in 2016 for Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn.
He’s a charter member, he quips, of the “Modern American Attention Deficit Disorder Musicians.” There are really only two others he’d put in that association: Jerry Douglas (whose fusiony Jerry Douglas Band may be the only thing out there comparable to the Flecktones) and Chris Thile (who’s resumé runs from Nickel Creek to ongoing collaborations with classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma and jazz pianist Brad Mehldau).
There’s one side of his musical hexadecagon he’s underserved for a while now, though. Ironically, it’s the one that first brought him fame when he emerged as a precocious New York City musician in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
“On the bluegrass side, people go, ‘Whatever happened to Béla Fleck? He could have been a great bluegrass player.’” he says. “Someone told me he had heard that. That was when I was at the top of my game, selling out stadiums with the Flecktones on tour with the Dave Matthews Band.”
Well, it has been 20 years since his last true bluegrass album, the on-point-titled The Bluegrass Sessions. And the one before that, the breakthrough Drive, came in 1988, a year before the Flecktones genesis. Well, as it happens, Fleck has a new bluegrass album in the works with a cast of musicians including such longtime buddies as Douglas, mandolinist Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, bassist Mark Schatz and fiddler Stuart Duncan (all of whom were on the 1988 album) and a mix of fellow veteran stars (bassist Meyer, mandolinists David Grisman and Chris Thile) and relative newcomers (fiddlers Billy Contreras and Michael Cleveland, mandolinist Dominick Leslie, and guitarist Cody Kilby).
The timing? Just seemed right, he says.
“Now the years have gone by and I didn’t have a place for bluegrass to fit in,” he says. “But I had these tunes burning a hole in my pocket and thought I would really love to have a place for them. These sessions have been a knockout. These are hard tunes. And we’re having a blast. It’s as good as I’d hoped.”
The results will be out sometime next year. But first there’s this Flecktones balloon to float.
“One thing I will guarantee you is you will never hear anything else like it,” he says. “There is nothing else like the Flecktones in the world. I promise that. And I am very proud that were are that, and that we are back together.”
GIVEAWAY: Win Meet & Greet + Tickets to Béla Fleck: Friends & Family @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Morrison, CO) 5/29 – 5/30
Gimme a Breakdown: 10 Tunes to Get You Going
Breakdowns are the barn-burning, breakneck, slapdash stalwarts of bluegrass and old-time traditions. They can be banjo songs, mandolin songs, fiddle songs — but every single one is truly a dancing song. Sometimes, all you need is an up-tempo bluegrass tune to get you going, so here are 10 breakdowns that will help you avoid any/all other types of breakdown.
“Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
Of course we had to lead off with this icon! Earl Scruggs’ most popular instrumental, for sure. It may be overplayed, but going back to Earl’s original reminds us why it’s ended up getting so many miles. It deserves the recognition and repetition, that’s for sure.
“Shenandoah (Valley) Breakdown”
It’s like “Boil Them Cabbage Down” but fast fast fast. This one goes by two names because with a tune so nice, they named it twice. Alan Munde gives it the melodic treatment, but you’ll notice his bouncy melody-driven take doesn’t lose a single ounce of drive. That’s Munde for you.
“White Horse Breakdown”
Casey Campbell and Mike Compton give “White Horse Breakdown” an incredibly tasty mando duo treatment, juxtaposing their distinct approaches to traditional, Monroe-style mandolin. This one just lends itself to duos, whether fiddle/banjo, mando/mando, or whatever combination you fancy!
“Crucial County Breakdown”
Béla Fleck and his illustrious Drive band (Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Tony Rice, Mark Schatz, and Mark O’Connor) turn the breakdown format on its ear for this newgrass-meets-traditional take. A nice reminder of why Béla and Drive are absolute essentials in the modern bluegrass canon.
“Blue Grass Breakdown”
The best example of a mandolin-centered breakdown, this one was named before bluegrass had been combined into one word — before the genre itself existed! The Father of Bluegrass himself, Bill Monroe, wrote the tune and kicks it off as only he can. It’s like “Foggy Mountain” but with F chords!
“Champagne Breakdown”
It’s a decadent, indulgent, wild one that registers only barely as a breakdown as we know them — I mean, modulations?! — but the Country Gentlemen were always about pushing the envelope and this delightful tune surely does that. You never quite know where it’s going to go next and that, my friends, is what breakdowns are all about.
“Pike County Breakdown”
All I can tell you is, make sure you get that signature lick right in the A part or the jam circle might give you some sidelong stares. Scott Vestal nails it on this recording, of course — along with Aubrey Haynie, Wayne Benson, Adam Steffey, Barry Bales, and Clay Jones. STACKED. Clean, hard-driving bluegrass. It’s what the world wants.
“Old & In The Way Breakdown”
In 1973, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Peter Rowan, and John Kahn coalesced as Old & In The Way, becoming one of the most influential bluegrass ambassador bands in the history of the music. Jerry Garcia shows his five-string chops quite well on this tune, which also goes by the name “Patty on the Turnpike.” But then it wouldn’t be a breakdown, now would it?
“Snowflake Breakdown”
And now, a fiddlin’ breakdown. Breakdowns are an integral part of fiddle contests — contests often require each contestant to play a tune considered a “breakdown” during competition. This one, performed by Bluegrass Hall of Famer Bobby Hicks, is often heard in contest situations, if not for the unexpected chord changes, simply because emulating Hicks never hurt anyone in a fiddle competition. No one really wonders why that is, either.
“Dawggy Mountain Breakdown”
Written by David “Dawg” Grisman, “Dawggy Mountain Breakdown” doesn’t just sound familiar because of its purposefully malapropistic name, it’s also the theme song for NPR’s incredibly popular radio show, Car Talk. The show’s hosts, Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers (AKA Tom and Ray Magliozzi), were/are big bluegrass fans and especially fans of Dawg and his music. It’s a beautiful little bluegrass easter egg on public radio — which are much too few and far between, if you ask me.
“Girl’s Breakdown”
(Edited to add:) Thank you to a commenter on social media for pointing out that, as is much-too-easy to do in bluegrass, our list of breakdowns didn’t include a single woman! Alison Brown, one of the world’s premier banjo players, even penned a satirically-titled tune to skewer this sexist paradigm in bluegrass. Y’all have heard “Earl’s Breakdown” plenty, it’s time for a dose of “Girl’s Breakdown.”
The Show On The Road – Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn
Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn — two legends and innovators who’ve brought the humble banjo across four continents and have won over 17 Grammys between them in the process — talk with Z. before their show at UCLA.
Powered by RedCircle
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3
For over three decades now Béla has quietly revolutionized how the banjo is played, recorded, and perceived — taking it from of the front porches of Appalachia and into jazz clubs, symphony halls and rock stadiums from his hometown of New York City to Uganda and Tibet and back again.
Meanwhile, Abigail has forged her own unique path. A fiercely intelligent songwriter and activist fluent in Mandarin, she gave up on being a well regarded lawyer in China after a meditation retreat brought her to the realization that the banjo and not the briefcase was her destiny. After meeting at a Nashville square dance (yes, that really happened), Bela and Abigail’s banjo explorations became one. Slowly, they began touring and recording together, and that’s where Z. caught up with them, on a rainy Wednesday on UCLA’s campus in LA.
Featured Songs: “Big Country” and “Over The Divide”
Presented by Nomad Goods. Head to hellonomad.com/bgs and use code “BGS” at checkout to receive 15% off any full priced items through the end of January.
The Breakdown – Béla Fleck, ‘Drive’
Béla Fleck’s virtuosic 1988 instrumental album, Drive, is a touchstone of modern acoustic music, and has since influenced almost every bluegrasser looking to break new ground.
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3
Featuring new interviews with Béla, Jerry Douglas, and Mark Schatz, this episode reveals the untold stories of its studio recording – including how Béla got tough with Tony Rice, and why Jerry was often found in tears out in the studio hallway.
Featured Song Clips From “Drive”
“Whitewater”
“Slipstream”
“Up and Around the Bend”
“Natchez Trace”
“See Rock City”
“The Legend”
“The Lights of Home”
“Down in the Swamp”
“Sanctuary”
“The Open Road”
“Crucial Country Breakdown”
GIVEAWAY – Win tickets to Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn @ UCLA – 2/6
Hangin’ & Sangin’: Jerry Douglas
From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.
With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Jerry Douglas. Welcome!
Hello. How are you?
I’m good. How are you?
I’m good. I’m having a wonderful week.
Yeah, you’re getting puppies!
I’m getting puppies today! I’m getting puppies today. My granddaughter’s at the house — another puppy, then I’m gonna go see my new grandson on Sunday — more puppies. It’s puppy week!
That’s good livin’!
It is good livin’. I love it.
Okay. Let’s talk about this dobro thing that you’ve got going on.
I’m sorry. [Laughs]
As you should be. [Laughs] What was it about the dobro that first lured you in, so many moons ago?
I don’t know if it was the dobro by itself or the guy who was playing it. Josh Graves played the dobro with Flatt & Scruggs, and he was the one that made me want to become a musician. It wasn’t just the way he played it, because I was hearing Bashful Brother Oswald, at the same time, playing with Roy Acuff and that was good, but Josh Graves stepped up to the microphone and he blew the doors off the place! He could keep up with Earl Scruggs, and he played bluesy, too. He played the blues. I think that was the difference for me, because I was growing up close to Cleveland, Ohio, so I was hearing a lot of rock ‘n’ roll at the same time, and it all worked for me — made the instrument work for me.
My dad had a bluegrass band, but there wasn’t a dobro player within a million miles of me. [Laughs] I told somebody the other day that I stood a better chance of getting hit by a car than to find a dobro. It was not something you saw and they didn’t know what it was. You’d go to a music store and say, “Do you have any dobros?” and they’d look at you like …
But you found each other.
We did.
You’re like Béla Fleck with the banjo, to me. Musically, you guys both do things with these instruments that isn’t normally expected. Who’s leading that exploration — is it you or the instrument? Are you following where it’s taking you?
I’m trying to take the instrument to new places. It’s a great bluegrass vehicle, which has been proven over and over again, with Josh Graves and Mike Auldridge and Rob Ickes. There are several people who really can play one of these things. But I keep exploring and trying to find other ways to use it — in classical music, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll. I created a pickup that works with it that keeps it sounding like a dobro, but you can play to a 24,000-seat place without feeding back. You can compete with a telecaster.
Nice. Do you ever get tired of it and think, “I’m gonna switch to the French horn” or something? Does the mastery ever stop? Is it every complete? Or is there always something new to learn and explore?
There’s always something new. I keep my ears open, and I sort of adapt other things to the guitar. The guitar’s a conduit of whatever’s in [my head], what’s rolling around in there all by itself. It’s a cobwebby place. [Laughs] But I think that I’m kind of trying to lead it from one place to another, but I do get tired of hearing it. I got so tired of it that I started carrying around refrigerator-sized racks of things to make it sound not like a dobro. And then I got tired of that, and I just wanted to hear a dobro again! So it’s a necessary evil.
But I love the sound of the guitar. These newer guitars don’t sound like the dobros did that were on the records that I learned to play from. So I keep a lot of those old guitars around, too. The guy that builds my guitars has actually just come out with a line of guitars that sound like the old guitars. Because, when I play with the Earls of Leicester, I play only old guitars, but he’s got this new guitar I played on the new record with the Earls and no one noticed.
Old sound, new technology. Probably sturdier.
Better construction, yeah. The older dobros, the Dopyera brothers got really lucky. [Laughs] The cone, a lot of things about the guitar haven’t changed since 1927. But the construction has, and how they’re big, beefy, low-ended things that have all these voices that the old dobros didn’t have. But the haunting element, for me, that drew me in in the first place, that’s missing from the big, beefy, hybrid guitars.
…
You mentioned the Earls of Leicester. I mentioned the Transatlantic Sessions and other collaborations, but your latest record is a Jerry Douglas Band joint called What If. Where do you see that album fitting into the wider landscape of your work?
That was really pushing my audience, I think. I quit a long time ago trying to make records for my audience.
I would think you would’ve had to.
I make them for me. I figure, if they really like me, they’ll go wherever I go.
Or wait until the next thing comes.
Or just wait until it comes back around to what you like! [Laughs] I love that record because it’s so big and full. It’s the full band effort with two horns and electric guitar, and everything is on this record. Except keyboards. But John Medeski is gonna play with me at MerleFest! So who knows where we go from there. But I just like the full sound and being able to, more or less, play the band, at this point. It’s dobro driven, and I write everything on the dobro, but everybody gets a little piece of the action.
…
[Tell me a memory of or something you gleaned from] Earl Scruggs.
Earl Scruggs was probably the first thing I remember hearing — ever. Then, when I got old enough, even at five years old, I knew that was good. I knew that was a good sound. It was obvious, just the way my dad would react to it and everybody, before I ever saw him. And then, when I saw him, he was on a pedestal to me, as was Josh Graves and the whole band. That was like seeing the Beatles for me, at six or seven years old, to see Flatt & Scruggs live in Youngstown, Ohio, at Stambaugh Auditorium. I even know what date it was and everything. It was like seeing the Beatles.
And then, I grow up and I move to Nashville and Earl Scruggs becomes my friend. That’s just nuts. But then, to get on the bus with him and be playing in his band, just to wind him up and let him start telling stories … because he was a very quiet man, a very quiet, reserved man. But when he got started telling stories, he couldn’t stop. It was so good! Everything was so good. Every minute, every second that I spent with him, I cherished. I’m blessed to have hung out with and been in the presence of some of these people. And Earl Scruggs is way up there on the top of the heap. There are not many people you can look at and say, “That guy is definitely a legend.” He’s like a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln kind of guy. [Laughs] I haven’t met many of those, a couple others maybe, but he was the first one — the first sound I ever heard and what influenced me in the journey that I’ve had, and what made me take the path that I took.
Well, thanks, Earl.
Thanks, Earl. Gee-whiz.
Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.
Hangin’ & Sangin’: Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.
With me today in the Writers’ Rooms at the Hutton … Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn. Welcome, you guys!
Both: Hi!
Echo in the Valley, the latest duo release. It’s your second. The first one, it did okay for you. You know, you got a Grammy, whatever. My real question, what’s the body count on this record?
Abigail Washburn: How many people have died in the making of the record?
No, on the record, how many people died? Because the last one had a body count.
Béla Fleck: That’s true, and we’ve moved away from that sort of thing on the new record. And we’re talking about the murder ballads, of course! [Laughs] For anybody out there who’s really getting uncomfortable. Yeah, we didn’t go so much into the murder ballads. Though, to tell you the truth, the one song that Abby wrote, “Shotgun Blues,” it sounds terrible, but nobody actually gets hurt in it. It’s actually a very sweet situation.
I’m not sure I believe that.
BF: It’s all about a girl who’s giving a guy a good talkin’ to.
AW: At the end of a shotgun.
BF: At the end of a shotgun, but no actual creeps get knocked off in the song. But we decided to stop doing it presently anyway, just because of the current horrible things that have been happening in our country, and just to give that stuff a bit of a rest.
AW: Because it was really supposed to be kind of humorous in a way, you know.
BF: Yeah, it was a joke.
AW: I mean it was a serious response to the fact that it’s usually women who die in murder ballads. So it had a serious intention, which was to expose that and take the power back in a funny way. But right now it doesn’t feel like shotguns are funny.
That’s true.
AW: So we had trouble continuing to play that song. Which is good, anyway, because there’s all this other material on this record that we’re eager to share with you.
BF: I was thinking we could rewrite the song a bit and make it be about a slingshot, about a girl holding a slingshot on this creep and just stay there until he gets his crap together, and if he doesn’t, oh boy, he’s gonna get zonked, right in the left eyeball.
AW: That’s creative honey. We’ll work on that.
…
I’m a big fan of Krista Tippett’s and On Being, and your episode is one of my very favorites.
BF: Thank you.
The way you guys think and talk about the banjo and the history of the banjo and what that means to you, and how you carry that forward and hold that in your music — its power, its potential, all of those things — it’s just remarkable to me. It was very moving to hear you talk about it. If you had to sum up what the banjo means to you in a few words, what would it be?
BF: Well, I’ll start and you just think about something better to say than what I’m gonna say.
AW: I usually do. [Laughs]
BF: Yes, she actually does. But for me, I just love the banjo, so of course, if you love something, you look for all of the cool things about it and the things that you identify with. It’s kind of justifying a life of pursuing something you really dig. And because you spend so much time around it, you learn those things that really make it special. So I know that there are a lot of other wonderful things in the world besides the banjo, but for me, making the banjo the most important thing in my life, until I met Abby and until we had kids, and that changed the balance …
Only just a little, though. [Laughs]
BF: Yeah, it goes back and forth. But then you learn the story of the banjo, and it becomes a very noble story. You can see the history of mankind through this instrument. It’s just powerful. There are so many stories in this thing — from African roots, and even before Africa, probably in Mesopotamia, and then coming here and being this hybrid instrument that crosses between Black and white society and, eventually, crosses over completely to white society, to the point where Black folks, a lot of folks don’t even really realize the banjo came from their heritage anymore. It’s kind of confusing. So I don’t know, I love history anyway. I’m a history buff. I love reading history books, and I read a lot of books about American history, and then I ended up sort of in the middle of it falling in love with this instrument. Now it’s time for Abby to say something much better.
AW: [Laughs]
Whatcha got, Washburn?
BF: Lay it on us!
AW: I completely agree with Béla, as to all the aspects of how it’s intellectually enlightening to learn through the banjo — its history and its path and its journey through the world, and especially in American society. For me, a lot of music is very much about spirit and spirituality, and what I mean by that is, there’s a spirit that can be channeled and passed along when something like this, an object that does have so much history to it, when I pick it up and start playing it, and I can feel the stories of people before. I know Béla and I both feel that these stories people have been singing about from the past are so important because they expose how humans have been and the patterns of human behavior throughout history — their hopes, their wants, the trials and tribulations they lived through, the joys and the successes of life. It’s just so helpful to hear those old stories and recognize that humans are still basically the same. There’s comfort in that, but there’s also a calling.
And so the spirit of the banjo, its heritage, and the voices that come to me through it teach me that there’s a lot to retain and preserve from our history and our roots, but there’s also a lot to be thought about, in terms of the potential of humans to transform and change. And there are ways we really need to do that. There are mistakes and sufferings we impose on each other that the old stories tell us about — like old murder ballads is a very obvious one. Protest songs, inspirational songs … like we do a version of a song called “Come All Ye Coal Miners,” which is a woman named Sarah Ogan Gunning in Appalachia telling the people, “I’ve lost two children to starvation, both my husband and my father died of black lung. This is wrong.” And yet, this is still happening today. So we can sing the same song that was written by her 60 years ago in the mining camps, and it’s still very powerful today, and it can be a catalyst for change. So I believe music is a catalyst for change and for preservation, and all of it’s important.
BF: And also just reminding us of things. Because we make the same mistakes over and over again, as people and as a race. So if you’re cognizant of things that have happened before, you might have a better chance of avoiding some of them.
I just want to throw one weird thing out there: It just sort of struck me that the banjo was rejected by Black people because it too much embodied the slavery days. And then later, it was rejected by white people because it too much embodied white Southern culture for a lot of people, and it was put down and made a joke of. So it’s been made a joke of from both angles. It’s very ironic. And then you’ve got people from all over the world … I mean, I come from New York City, what am I doing playing the banjo? But you know, there is a lot of banjo playing from the 1800s on in New York City. So anyway, that’s my last thing to throw in on that subject.
AW: I’m just gonna dovetail on what you’re saying. It feels like a powerful time right now. There’s a lot of polarity, lots of energy going in different directions, divisiveness, people sensationalizing emotion into reality. So it feels like a time when there can be a very transformative impact from things in culture, like music. And it does feel like a new day for the banjo. And that’s global, but also very connected to roots and to our local existence, too. And I think it’s the perfect device to channel what we need, which is preservation of what’s beautiful, what’s meaningful, what defines us, and the power to change what happens in the future.
Watch all the episodes on YouTube, or download and subscribe to the Hangin’ & Sangin’ podcast and other BGS programs every week via iTunes, Spotify, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform.
Steve Martin: Making the Same Sound Different
The sound of a five-string banjo has a cosmic pull. When Earl Scruggs first took to the Grand Ole Opry stage with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys in 1945, his rapid-fire, three-finger picking style shocked and stunned the Ryman Auditorium audience and radio listeners across the country. The standing ovation he received shook the entire building to its rafters with hands clapping, boots stomping, and hootin’ and hollerin’. It was the Big Bang of bluegrass banjo.
Almost every banjo player could tell you the first time they heard the instrument, the first time they encountered its cosmic pull — a personal, introspective banjo Big Bang unique to each person who is struck by its irresistible, joyful, magnetic sound. Steve Martin describes the first time he heard a banjo as his “What’s that!?” moment. “I kind of pin it on the Kingston Trio,” he remembers. “But I know there were earlier things. I fell in love with the four-string banjo, too. When I was 11, I would go to Disneyland to see the Golden Horseshoe Revue, and there was a four-string banjo player. When I worked at Knott’s Berry Farm, there was a four-string banjo player there, too.” His voice shifts to a whisper, as he adds, “But, we all know that five is better.”
He continues, “I do believe it was kind of the Kingston Trio or folk music, in general, that really made the sound like, ‘Wow, what a happy, wonderful sound!’”
He picked up the banjo as a teenager, taking on three-finger, Scruggs-style picking with the help and influence of his friend John McEuen. But, unlike most banjo pickers, who choose one style — Scruggs’ namesake method, or jazz and ragtime on tenor and plectrum banjos, or any of several types of frailing — Martin also had a “What’s that!?” moment with the old-time form, clawhammer: “It was a record called 5-String Banjo Greats and another record called the Old-Time Banjo Project. They were both compilations. So I don’t know who introduced me to clawhammer. When I was learning three-finger and I was into it about three years, I started to really notice clawhammer, and I go, ‘Oh, no. I have to learn that, too.’”
He is a master of both three-finger and clawhammer to this day and, on his brand new record, The Long-Awaited Album, he shifts effortlessly between the two — sometimes within one song.
Through his career as a comedian and actor, the banjo was ever at Martin’s side. It was a part of his stand-up act, it was peppered into his comedy albums, and it made cameos on his TV appearances. It would be cliché to assume that the banjo and bluegrass were a byproduct of Martin’s comedy career, but the instrument was never an afterthought, an addendum, or a prop. In fact, bluegrass and folk music showed him from his early show biz days working at theme parks that humor was an integral part of these musical traditions.
“When I first started hearing live music, like the Dillards or folk music of some kind, they all did jokes,” he says. “They all did funny intros to songs. They did riffs. They did bits. And then they did their music. That’s essentially what we’re doing now.” The silly, whimsical, comedic elements of the music Martin makes with his collaborators, friends, and backing band — the Steep Canyon Rangers — are just as much a testament to Martin’s history with bluegrass as they are a testament to his extraordinary comedy career.
During the seven years that elapsed between their last bluegrass album, Rare Bird Alert, and The Long-Awaited Album, Martin and the Rangers wrote, developed, and arranged the project’s material during soundchecks, band rehearsals, and downtime on the bus. Barn-burning, Scruggs-style tunes and contemplative, frailing instrumentals are sprinkled amidst love songs and story songs, silly and earnest, all steeped in quirky, humorous inventiveness. The album is centered on a solidly bluegrass aesthetic — but bluegrass is not a default setting.
Musical and production choices for each song were pointed and deliberate, with producer Peter Asher, Martin, and the Rangers keeping each song central and building out the sound around any given track’s core idea. “I love the sound of the five, six instruments that are traditionally bluegrass,” Martin clarifies. “That’s all we need. The Rangers, they say bluegrass is five musicians playing all the time. Other music is five musicians not playing all the time. In bluegrass, they have breaks, but there’s always the backup going. There’s always everybody chopping. So I thought, ‘What if we left out some of the instruments? What if we were not playing all the time?’ It really made a different sound.”
By leaving out an instrument here or there, adding in a cello or, in the case of the lead track, “Santa Fe,” an entire Mariachi band, the album’s sound registers immediately as bluegrass, but refuses to be lazily or automatically categorized as such. First and foremost, it sounds like Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. “I’ve always loved the idea of the sound of the banjo against the cello, or viola, or violin, because you have the staccato notes against the long notes. The cello or viola contribute to the melancholy and mood of the banjo. But mostly, it’s just us, the seven musicians, including myself. We can reproduce it on stage … except for the mariachi. But the song called for a mariachi band, you know?” He laughs and adds, “There’s almost no way to avoid it.”
Where many bluegrass and folk writers eschew modern vernacular, places, and topics, Martin leans in, embracing contemporary scenarios and themes that don’t necessarily fit the stereotypes of train-hopping, moonshine-running, field-plowing folk music. The Olive Garden, nights in a biology laboratory, a gate at an airport, “Angeline the Barista” … the timelessness of roots and folk music isn’t lost in these themes and settings; it’s enhanced, it’s relatable, and it’s damn funny.
“I’ve written a song about a train, and I’ve written a song about Paul Revere. I think it’s got to be specific for people. They’ve got to go, ‘I know that!’ If I’m writing about a train, I know that 99 percent of people that the song will be heard by won’t really have that experience. But if I write about the Olive Garden and a girl busting up with you, I think a lot of people can relate to that, even if they don’t have that exact experience.”
The relatability and visibility of Martin’s music have brought bluegrass — and the banjo — to countless ears that may have never heard it otherwise. In 2015, the International Bluegrass Music Association awarded Martin a Distinguished Achievement Award with this visibility and outreach in mind. With The Long-Awaited Album; the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass that he awards annually; a national tour of his banjo-forward, Tony-nominated Broadway musical, Bright Star; and a heavy touring schedule criss-crossing the country with the Steep Canyon Rangers and his longtime comedy partner, Martin Short, Martin is poised to continue bringing the banjo to many first-time listeners.
But when faced with the idea that he, himself, could very well be the “What’s that?!” moment for an entire generation of brand new banjo players, he is unfalteringly modest. “What I try to express with the banjo is the sound of the banjo. When I first heard Earl Scruggs, I loved his skill, his timing, and his musicianship. I regard myself as someone who’s expressing the sound of the banjo rather than being a superior, technical player like Béla Fleck. So, if anyone picks up the banjo from hearing me, it’s because they fell in love with the sound of the banjo. What I do is get the sound of the banjo out there to a broader world, I guess.”
Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.