Word: banjo
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...visitor to the state will feel the tension between the urban and the rural. Discovering these two cultures can be the best part of a trip. Only in Arkansas can people visit a real blacksmith in Smackover who plays the banjo and then go to the DMZ bar just south (in Little Rock) to hear some of the most alternative of the alternative music in the nation. Interested travelers should show up early on Wednesdays for poetry readings and performance art that only a New Yorker could appreciate...
Hornsby the lyricist is at his best when describing Southern working-class life with distinctly populist political overtones. This is highlighted on the album's best track, "Another Day," a hand-clapping, banjo-picking, hyperactive hoedown tune that could well have been played at a Southern dance hall like the one pictured on the album jacket...
...instrument offered more than aesthetic satisfaction. "My brother and I were overweight as kids," Fleck recalls. "So I didn't have a great self- image, but I found this thing I could do that made me feel good. I played banjo all the time and stopped eating for satisfaction. I almost feel that I have a deal with the banjo, that if I put the time in and take care of it, I'll be thin and have something. And if I don't, part of me is afraid it will all fall apart...
Fleck attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, where banjo was not considered a serious instrument. So he studied privately, first with Erik Darling, onetime member of the Weavers folk quartet, and eventually with Trischka, an urban bluegrass whiz. Even then, Fleck was an eclectic, trying to absorb everything from salsa to jazz. Especially jazz. "I bought a Charlie Parker record, and I thought, "Wow! This is incredible." I tried to learn Parker's licks on the banjo, but I couldn't find the notes." One day, in a high school jazz-appreciation class, the teacher played pianist...
Fleck can be as eloquent talking banjo as he is playing it. "There are things I want to play that I haven't been able to yet," he offers. "Like improvising. That can be a very spiritual experience. Stuff you don't even know pours out. I want to become more tuned into pulling off the notes I hear in my head at the exact moment I hear them. It's a lifelong goal." Stay tuned...