Washburn tot lot11/29/2023 With I don’t wanna cry, cry, cry, oh, “Let it Go” is ultimately about release from the pain of transition, surrendering to growth. New original tunes range from “Over the Divide,” a song inspired by Hans Breuer, who worked to ferry Syrian refugees to safety, to “Blooming Rose,” inspired by Native American voices and lamenting a continual distancing from nature, and “Don’t Let It Bring You is an emphatic mantra for hard times. “We spent a lot of our time on the lyrics, deciding what we want the songs to communicate, both literally and under the surface.”Įcho in the Valley reflects relevant issues while simultaneously connecting us to our past through wild re-imaginings of traditional pieces. “This time, we really wanted to truly write together,” Béla adds. With the exception of a few restyled traditional tunes, all tracks on Echo in the Valley are originals, and are largely co-written – a different creative approach from their first album, where songs were mostly his or hers. They’ve been touring the globe as a duo for years, almost nonstop but for each other’s performances with various other musical iterations: Béla with the likes of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Chick Corea and Chris Thile, among many others, and Abigail with Wu Fei (a master of the ancient 21-string Chinese zither), The Wu-Force and Uncle Earl. They married shortly thereafter and became parents to a cute little tot. “We’re expressing different emotions through past techniques and going to deeper places.” The results are fascinating, especially considering their strict rules for recording: all sounds must be created by the two of them, the only instruments used are banjos (they have seven between them, ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo), and they must be able to perform every recorded song live.įleck and Washburn met at a square dance and began playing music together a dozen years ago, beginning with the Sparrow Quartet. This time around, the mission was to take their double banjo combination of three finger and clawhammer styles “to the next level and find things to do together that we had not done before,” says Béla. It’s a great example of how the world can combine things and create surprising hybrids,” a reference to the ancestral African roots of the banjo combining with Scotch-Irish music in Appalachia.Įcho in the Valley is the follow up to Béla and Abigail’s acclaimed, self-titled debut that earned the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album. “Some of the most interesting things in the world come together in strange and unique ways and show our diversity,” reflects Béla, a fifteen-time Grammy award winner who is often considered the world’s premier banjo player.
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