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I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.

Bela Fleck

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

Gone Musical Thinking
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
Sometimes you can fix something that went wrong with what you do next and make it better than it would have been if it hadn’t gone wrong, as an improviser, and I do know how to do that.
BELA FLECK

Gone People Sometimes Wrong
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
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
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
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
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
Sometimes you can fix something that went wrong with what you do next and make it better than it would have been if it hadn’t gone wrong, as an improviser, and I do know how to do that.
BELA FLECK

Gone People Sometimes Wrong
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
And then Earl Scruggs comes along and transforms the banjo into a virtuosic modern instrument. For the first time, the Southern banjo style becomes the identity of the banjo, and everything from before is wiped off of people’s consciousness by the power of that explosion.
BELA FLECK

People Southern Style
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
I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.
BELA FLECK

I Can People Trying
It doesn’t have to be happy music to be inspiring.
BELA FLECK

Inspiring Jazz Music
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 always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.

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I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.

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