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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.

Bela Fleck

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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.

BELA FLECK

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

Doubt Suggestion
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
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
It doesn’t have to be happy music to be inspiring.

BELA FLECK

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

Inspiring Jazz
There are a lot of chapters to the banjo’s history. Part of it are the roots in Africa, where it’s a more primitive instrument. Then it comes to the United States where it morphs into the slave music that they created here, which was very African in origin.
BELA FLECK

Roots United States
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

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

White Years
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
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.
BELA FLECK

Mixtures Roots
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 Sometimes
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

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

Fighting Getting
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 Sometimes
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

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 Real
Everybody should have a documentary made about themselves. It’s amazing what you see and what you learn.

BELA FLECK

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

Documentaries Learn Made Themselves
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 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
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

Years
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

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

Hip Hop

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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