Bela Fleck
Bela Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleckis an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBanjo Player
Date of Birth10 July 1958
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
bluegrass created music people since study talk
It's like music theory, which was created to study what already was. Bluegrass exists, and since it's been around long enough there are people who want to talk about it,
band cd deserves recorded
The band deserves to be recorded. And we also recorded a live CD on the tour. Some day that will come out, for sure.
continue creativity full possibilities space
I'm just full of ideas. I have hundreds of possibilities. Hopefully, I'll continue to have space for that creativity to happen.
giving hard letting prepared sort worked
There really had to be some letting go and just sort of giving yourself up to the gods. I worked so hard to be prepared, but I had to be prepared to play things I was NOT prepared for.
amazingly ambitious edited far hoped might musicians nine qualities record recorded refined rough songs sort stuff unusual
It was a very ambitious trip. I have to say, to my surprise, all of our ambitions were fulfilled. All of the musicians we were going down there to record with, we recorded with?I've edited about nine or 10 songs down from the trip, and the stuff is really, really unusual and special. It far exceeds what I hoped for in sort of the refined qualities of it. I thought it might just sort of be rough stuff out in the woods. But ? some of this stuff is just amazingly fine, fine stuff.
knew research specific trying
I did so much research that I knew what I was getting into. I was trying to find specific musicians.
coming cool experience guys looked personal playing since together
We've been playing together since June. It's a cool experience on a personal level. They're the guys that I looked up to when I was coming up.
memories powerful years
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.
people trying i-can
I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.
thinking years white
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.
creative doubt suggestions
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.
inspiring music happy-music
It doesn't have to be happy music to be inspiring.
thinking roots mixtures
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.
stress thinking play
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!