black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I don’t know enough about hip-hop, though I’ve heard some great hip-hop. I just did a thing with Qwest Love – we did a performance together in Memphis at the Folk Alliance Festival, and we had a great jam and a conversation.

Bela Fleck

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface.
BELA FLECK

Thinking White Years
I doubt anybody would have pushed me [on the music]. When I was at Sony nobody ever gave me any creative suggestions on the music.
BELA FLECK

Creative Doubt Suggestion
I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.
BELA FLECK

I Can People Trying
I first heard the banjo on the Beverly Hillbillies, and from then on I was banjo-conscious. But I didn’t actually get one until my grandfather gave me one, almost by mistake.
BELA FLECK

Guitar Home Mistake
When I play my own music, or when I play new music, there’s much more stress and intensity of thinking about how I’m going to make it work!
BELA FLECK

Play Stress Thinking
Everybody should have a documentary made about themselves. It’s amazing what you see and what you learn.
BELA FLECK

Documentaries Learn Made Themselves
There is a tendency to want to isolate a little bit, from people that might look at me from a fan position, because it’s hard to be a real person around them, and I really want that when I’m not out on tour and in that sort of public eye.
BELA FLECK

Eye People Real
I learned that I’m so busy with what I’m doing, so focused on what I’m doing, that I miss a lot of opportunities for interacting with people.
BELA FLECK

Missing Opportunity People
It doesn’t have to be happy music to be inspiring.
BELA FLECK

Inspiring Jazz Music
I don’t know enough about hip-hop, though I’ve heard some great hip-hop. I just did a thing with Qwest Love – we did a performance together in Memphis at the Folk Alliance Festival, and we had a great jam and a conversation.
BELA FLECK

Hip Hop Jam Together
I think I’m getting better at being verbal. I used to have a lot of problems with it. I had my own little demons that I was fighting, and I used the banjo as an escape.
BELA FLECK

Better Fighting Getting Thinking
My most powerful memory was hearing Earl Scruggs on ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ as a 5 or 6 year old. That sound just blew me away, shook my head up.
BELA FLECK

Memories Powerful Years
I think the musical evolution I’ve gone through has come from all the work with the material.
BELA FLECK

Gone Musical Thinking
Being from New York, I wonder why am I inspired by bluegrass and Earl Scruggs? But when I look at the whole history of the banjo, I feel really good about it, including the Earl Scruggs part.
BELA FLECK

Country Inspired Looks
He knew I was playing a little bit of guitar. He saw a banjo at a flea market and bought it. I took it home with me and just never put it down. I was fifteen.
BELA FLECK

Down Flea Guitar Play
There’s a lot of hip-hop that would be great with a banjo in it. It would just groove like crazy, and I hope I get to be one of the guys who does that, because it’s coming. It’s coming.
BELA FLECK

Crazy Guy Hip Hop

I don’t know enough about hip-hop, though I’ve heard some great hip-hop. I just did a thing with Qwest Love – we did a performance together in Memphis at the Folk Alliance Festival, and we had a great jam and a conversation.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I don’t know enough about hip-hop, though I’ve heard some great hip-hop. I just did a thing with Qwest Love – we did a performance together in Memphis at the Folk Alliance Festival, and we had a great jam and a conversation.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bela Fleck Quotes