Banjo still resonates
Why artists are strumming their way to the top of the charts.
Banjos rule. Bands like Mumford & Sons, the Avett Brothers, and myriad stompfolk acts — from The Lumineers to Icelandic atmospheric folk darlings Of Monsters and Men — are taking the instrument made popular by the likes of Earl Scruggs and folk troubadour Pete Seeger back to the top of the charts.
Even country music seems to have lost the anti- banjo stance it took when it went pop country. Seeing and hearing country poster girls like Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves plucking drum- skinned twang boxes is the new cool.
Once infatuated with splashing trumpets and trombones on their material, indie kids are putting banjos on everything.
Banjos really are the flavour du jour.
“I like it when it’s good and I don’t like it when it’s bad,” said banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck in a recent phone interview.
Fleck and his wife Abigail Washburn, who is also a banjo expert in her own right, will perform as a duet at the Chan Centre May 10.
“To me it doesn’t feel like success to have crappy banjo on a crappy song,” Fleck added. “Just because it’s widespread doesn’t mean it’s good. But there’s a lot of really good playing going on, and that I find even more exciting.”
As far as good banjo players are concerned, few can equal the prowess and innovation that Fleck, now 55, brings to the instrument. Fleck, whether on his own, with his band the Flecktones, with Washburn’s Sparrow Quartet, or with intricate orchestral arrangements as showcased on his latest album The Impostor, has been a constant source of forward- thinking evolution for the instrument.
“What I like about the fact that it’s everywhere right now is that the stigma factor — associations to movies like Deliverance ( the 1972 Georgiabased thriller that opened with a scene featuring Arthur Smith’s classic Dueling Banjos) and the Hee- Haw television show — has faded away. People might chuckle a little bit about the idea of the banjo, but they also take it seriously.
“So when you think, ‘ Why are all these people that are more mainstream putting the banjo in their music?’ It’s because it has a sound of authenticity. That will only last until it becomes associated with music that isn’t authentic. I find the Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons to be very honest about it. I think they play with a lot of authenticity. I think that’s why they’re successful at what they do. ”
Fleck points to the banjo’s true origins in Africa as a counterpoint to the clichéd idea that banjos are mostly meant to emulate the sound of America’s Deep South and redneck culture.
When I first started, I really decided to be a comedian, so I underplayed the banjo.
STEVE MARTIN
COMEDIAN/ MUSICIAN
Washburn’s incorporation of Chinese musical elements in her own work also points to the instrument’s connections elsewhere on the globe.
“Abi is very attracted to using music as a cultural door opener, the way Pete Seeger used the banjo as an instrument of change,” Fleck said. “When I was learning the banjo in New York City, ( Seeger) was a great example of a ‘ New York City banjo player.’ He was a lot more than a banjo player, he was a spokesman for a certain part of our society at that time. He also was a guy who believed in everybody getting together and using music as a ‘ wedge.’ The music was a meeting point for people to discover how much they agreed on things. He also did very simple music. His message had to do with simplicity. Mine is probably the furthest from that.” Fleck laughed. As a duet, Fleck and Washburn ( who are touring with their one- year- old son Juno in tow) are finding a way to balance the simplicity of her songwriting and the complexity of his avant- garde propensities. It certainly is a musical marriage in all aspects, and one that will bear an album in the fall.
“It’s beautiful,” Fleck said. “But a duo doesn’t have to be simple. For instance, the other duo I’m in is with Chick Corea, and that’s extremely complicated. Abi probably feels that she’s stretching to play complex things, and I’m playing on the simpler side of what I get to do. But I love it.
“For one, I never get to work with a singer any more. I probably haven’t worked with a singer since the ’ 80s with ( defunct progressive bluegrass band) New Grass Revival in any kind of full- time capacity. And I love the fact that there’s a folk and an earthy, old- time bluegrass element to it — which, again, I hardly ever do any more. But I love it. That’s why I play the banjo.”
Named after composer Béla Bartók ( whose work is splattered sonically all over The Impostor) and raised in his native New York City, Fleck was drawn to the banjo after hearing the theme song to Beverly Hillbillies as a kid. His grandfather gave him his first banjo in 1973, when Fleck was 15.
Fleck is a true adept of the clawhammer technique, a style that, as opposed to classic fingers- and- thumb string picking used by pioneer Earl Scruggs, involves striking the strings with the back of your fingernails, your wrist or elbow in a rhythmic downward motion. ( The shape of your hand as you play is that of a claw, hence the name.)
It is the same style used by a wide variety of banjo players including wife Washburn, Canadian folkie Old Man Luedecke, Neil Young, Dixie Chicks’ Emily Robison and comedian/ musician Steve Martin, who has been playing clawhammer style since the ’ 70s.
Martin spent the better part of his decade- long standup comedy career trying to foist one of his genuine loves — the banjo — upon his audience.
Martin arrived at the decision that the two would never coexist, despite his best efforts to include the instrument at his concerts and on some of his recordings.
“When I first started, I really decided to be a comedian, so I underplayed the banjo,” Martin said. “I didn’t want it to be a music show, I wanted it to be a comedy show. I subordinated the banjo and the music because I didn’t have anybody to play with. It was just me. And music always sounds better when you’ve got some other people.”
When he finally decided to merge the two for good — with no apologies — he was pleasantly surprised at the results, if not the reception from his fans. Martin is currently on a multifaceted tour with singer Edie Brickell and bluegrass band the Steep Canyon Rangers, one that crosses music with comedy in a way that suits Martin just fine. The tour hits Nanaimo May 11 and Victoria May 12.
“The fact that the comedy is broken up by music, it really helps keep you from having to stand there for an hour and a half doing comedy, which is not easy,” said Martin, 68. “The fact that we can relax into a nice song, it’s really nice.”
It took the native of Waco, Tex., who was raised in California, a long time to get to this point. There was always a musical bent to his comedy, dating back to King Tut, his parody hit with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The song broke into the Top 20 on the pop charts in 1978, a reflection of both his reputation at the time and innate ability at finding the perfect balance between music and mayhem.
Once feature films became more of a priority for Martin, his musical endeavours began to take a back seat, though he was careful never to let them disappear entirely. He toyed with the idea of making a banjo record of his own after a collaboration with bluegrass king Scruggs in 2001. The experience sent him back to the drawing board, and in 2009 he released his first album of all original musical material, The Crow: New Songs for the 5- String Banjo.
Martin said he was surprised to find that modern- day audiences were finally ready to embrace the sympathetic qualities of country and comedy in a way that older audiences didn’t think twice about in the days of Homer and Jethro, Minnie Pearl and Hee- Haw.
“When I first started playing music, there were all these folk music acts around Orange County that combined comedy with music. In a way, I’m kind of a throwback to what I was raised on and started out doing.”