Abigail Washburn
Abigail Washburn
Abigail Washburnis an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBanjo Player
Date of Birth10 November 1977
CountryUnited States of America
banjo child connect deal fell future god pain parents past period playing record time
When I first started playing the banjo and miraculously fell into a record deal in Nashville, TN, there was a period when I didn't go to China. It hurt. Like a pain in my gut... that pain you feel when you know it's time to connect with your parents or your God or your child or your past or your future... and you don't do it.
flute girls played tried
I played piano and was always in the choir. I tried to play flute because all the pretty girls played flute.
girl pretty-girl play
I tried to play flute because all the pretty girls played flute.
player chinese singing
I reside in a new colony for the Chinese-singing banjo player, with a population of one. At least I have something I have to do with my life.
call music obsession played
My parents played the radio, but music was never an obsession or something that I thought I could call a career.
kept looked realized visit
In China, I realized that if you visit often enough and learn the language, you will be assimilated, but you'll still be kept at arm's length; you'll always be looked on as a foreigner.
belong both chinese gene music musical scale seem understand whenever
I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.
best doors finally general supposed
I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea that I'm an artist.
believe change music power
I believe in music because it has the power of change.
intention power
I would say I've always lived creativity, but now I - I do it with an intention that's got a completely different power.
music pot
I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.
beauty common drive human louder music needs search share sure
My whole drive is to make sure that music is a common space where we search for beauty and share it. It needs to be louder than any conversation. That's where we have to go as a human race.
era learned marches mom peace
As a child, I went to peace and ERA marches on the back of my mom and grandmother. Through them I learned that I wanted to find a way to make the world a more kind, compassionate place.
afraid
You have to try things you're really afraid of, even if you pee yourself a little bit.