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
running land rivers
I was a big fan of a writer named Jack Vance, a science fiction writer. He always wrote about these guys who were either going down a river in a strange world or would be in this one land where people acted really strange, and he'd have these interactions with them that were strange - he'd usually get run out of town or something. Then he'd end up in the next town over where the rules were totally different. And I love this stuff.
hip-hop together jam
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.
roots united-states slave
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.
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!
inspiring music happy-music
It doesn't have to be happy music to be inspiring.
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.
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.
people trying i-can
I always try to work with people who are better than me, so I can learn more.
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.
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.
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.
crazy hip-hop guy
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.
new-york looks inspired
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.
people southern style
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.