Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn give audiences a double dose of banjo heaven

Bela Fleck and his wife Abigail Washburn are touring to give Australian audiences a double dose of banjo heaven.

Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn performing at the City Recital Hall, Sydney. Picture: Jared Leibowitz

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Bela Fleck has done more than anyone for his beloved instrument, the banjo – tracing its African roots, elevating it to a classical status with his transcriptions of works by Bach and entering the heady world of Charlie Parker and bebop through his collaborations with the late jazz piano legend Chick Corea.

But when the pandemic hit he started looking back to his bluegrass roots – that and his unique musical partnership with his wife, fellow banjoist and singer Abigail Washburn.

Holed up at home in Nashville with their two sons they started a series of video shows, wrote some new songs and polished their trademark duelling banjo numbers. Now, two years late, they’re back in Australia, starting their tour in the City Recital Hall with a one-off night of music and plenty of laid-back banter for an adoring audience.

Starting with a lockdown song, I’m Still Here – “I haven’t had a meal since the fire went out and all I do is sit and stare, but I’m still here” – they presented two sets of their own material, old and new, peppered with some new takes on pop classics like Little Richard’s Keep a Knockin’ and black jazz singer Abbey Lincoln’s 1960s carpe diem anthem, Long As You’re Living.

The audience got a close-up listening to their complementary playing styles – Fleck using the three-finger picking method invented by the great Earl Scruggs and Washburn favouring the “old-style” frailing or clawhammer technique – on a medley of three fiddle tunes, Fleck’s breakneck runs and cascading rhythms underpinned by Washburn’s percussive chord changes and interlocking runs.

Many of the numbers featured her distinctive voice – sometimes with an attractive built-in yodel – including two versions, one old the other newly minted, of Little Birdy which featured on their first eponymous album from 2014.

Abigail Washburn sang from the balcony above the City Recital Hall stage. Picture: Jared Leibowitz

Washburn also made use of the balcony above the stage to deliver a riveting version of the old country favourite Bright Morning Stars, an optimistic song which bears more than a passing resemblance to Amazing Grace, and brought the house down with the couple’s own Take Me Back To Harlan, which she sang while clogging on a dance board, her feet tapping time to Fleck’s ragtime accompaniment.

Both players switched between instruments, Washburn sometimes favouring the mellow cello banjo while Fleck often switched to an all-black baritone, tuned a fifth below the conventional five-string.

His two lengthy solo spots included one of his Bach excursions, taking a Prelude from the Well-Tempered Clavier then, after faithfully rendering it like a classical guitarist morphing into a bluegrass style variation tribute to his hero Earl Scruggs and some bars from the Ballad of Jed Clampett.

Another highlight was Washburn’s singing on Blooming Rose, a song they co-wrote to address the injustices to America’s native people and which she dedicated to Australia’s First Nations people of Gadigal land.

They finished with two favourites from their two albums, a bluesy arrangement of Clarence Ashley’s My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains and a take on the old American folk song I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.

DETAILS

• CONCERT Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn

• WHERE City Recital Hall

• WHEN March 7, 2023