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 FLECKMy 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.
More Bela Fleck Quotes
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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.
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I think the musical evolution I’ve gone through has come from all the work with the material.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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Everybody should have a documentary made about themselves. It’s amazing what you see and what you learn.
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I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz.
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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.
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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.
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It doesn’t have to be happy music to be inspiring.
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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.
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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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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