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Abigail Washburn: made of awesome
I have been amiss in my fannish duties: I must fangirl about Abigail Washburn, an amazing banjo player and singer/songwriter who recently visited Wesleyan. She's fluent in Mandarin and incorporates Chinese with bluegrass music in some of her songs.
She and Ben Sollee (cellist) were endearingly excited about their first performance at a university, and just flat-out hilarious. In between songs, Abigail would start telling stories about living in China or traveling in Tibet with the Sparrow Quartet (which includes Ben, and Bela Fleck, who is apparently the Lord High Badass of Banjo) and get sidetracked, so Ben started plucking a little accompaniment to tease her. Ben, I swear to God, is like Jeremy from Sports Night if he had grown up in Kentucky and was obsessed with cello instead of sports. They were adorkable.
Abigail played a lot of songs from her album, but also some traditional Chinese and Appalachian songs that she knew. Ben has an album, Turn On the Moon, but he didn't bring any copies, the dork, and you can't order it anywhere yet. Abigail teased him for it, and he joked that he had been at a Buddhist retreat and was giving up all worldly possessions. He did play "Bury Me With My Car," a song that Kim would have loved - he references Egyptian, Roman, and Chinese burial rites, and then pokes at the American car obsession. It was catchy, dammit, that boy makes his cello sound *fun*. He's got this interesting plucking technique that can sound like a harp, and this bow thing that... I really don't have the vocabulary for this sort of fangirling. My cellist friend Marta was fascinated, though. She came up right after the Q&A to look at his lovely cello because he'd mentioned getting it on EBay for $200 (he apparently refurbished it quite a bit), and he was all, "Yeah, hang onto it for me for a second? I'll be right back." Marta was stunned, but when he got back she started right in quizzing him on his playing style *g* That's my girl.
That was the other thing that was awesome - they stayed after for a Q&A, then for students to come talk to them, and we kept them until midnight (the show ended before 10!). I was talking to Ben most of the time because of Marta and my own wee crush on the boy, but Abigail had her own flock. At one point, Ben was talking about learning dances in Tibet (Abigail said he dances well - swing, salsa, contra, etc. *swoon*), and decided we needed to demonstrate, so we were faking this twirly Tibetan circle dance. What happened next? Abigail turned it into a square dance. With *clogging*. IT WAS AWESOME.
After the dancing, we all plopped down and listened to a song my friend Anna wrote, which was fantastic. I was really happy for her - she started learning the banjo after hearing Abigail this summer, and she was bouncing around before the concert just for getting to *see* her, and then we got to sit around and *chat* with her, and she complimented Anna's song and told her to come hang out at some music festival this summer (the name escapes me). I've rarely seen someone physically squee before, but Anna did the second we left the concert hall ;)
All in all, the duo was everything you want in live music: great performance, good stories, funny chemistry and camaraderie, and complete, cheerful accessibility. I had a blast. As you might have guessed.
As a temptation, I've zipped up three songs from her solo album, Song of the Traveling Daughter. The title song is an interpretation of an old Mandarin poem, with Abigail's Appalachian twist (lyrics and translation). "Coffee's Cold" makes me tap my feet, while "Sometimes" is just lovely and joyful. I should have included one of her traditional recordings (I adore "Nobody's Fault But Mine"), but I cut myself off at three. You can check her out on iTunes, or listen to clips at her homepage. Even her website is gorgeous.
She and Ben Sollee (cellist) were endearingly excited about their first performance at a university, and just flat-out hilarious. In between songs, Abigail would start telling stories about living in China or traveling in Tibet with the Sparrow Quartet (which includes Ben, and Bela Fleck, who is apparently the Lord High Badass of Banjo) and get sidetracked, so Ben started plucking a little accompaniment to tease her. Ben, I swear to God, is like Jeremy from Sports Night if he had grown up in Kentucky and was obsessed with cello instead of sports. They were adorkable.
Abigail played a lot of songs from her album, but also some traditional Chinese and Appalachian songs that she knew. Ben has an album, Turn On the Moon, but he didn't bring any copies, the dork, and you can't order it anywhere yet. Abigail teased him for it, and he joked that he had been at a Buddhist retreat and was giving up all worldly possessions. He did play "Bury Me With My Car," a song that Kim would have loved - he references Egyptian, Roman, and Chinese burial rites, and then pokes at the American car obsession. It was catchy, dammit, that boy makes his cello sound *fun*. He's got this interesting plucking technique that can sound like a harp, and this bow thing that... I really don't have the vocabulary for this sort of fangirling. My cellist friend Marta was fascinated, though. She came up right after the Q&A to look at his lovely cello because he'd mentioned getting it on EBay for $200 (he apparently refurbished it quite a bit), and he was all, "Yeah, hang onto it for me for a second? I'll be right back." Marta was stunned, but when he got back she started right in quizzing him on his playing style *g* That's my girl.
That was the other thing that was awesome - they stayed after for a Q&A, then for students to come talk to them, and we kept them until midnight (the show ended before 10!). I was talking to Ben most of the time because of Marta and my own wee crush on the boy, but Abigail had her own flock. At one point, Ben was talking about learning dances in Tibet (Abigail said he dances well - swing, salsa, contra, etc. *swoon*), and decided we needed to demonstrate, so we were faking this twirly Tibetan circle dance. What happened next? Abigail turned it into a square dance. With *clogging*. IT WAS AWESOME.
After the dancing, we all plopped down and listened to a song my friend Anna wrote, which was fantastic. I was really happy for her - she started learning the banjo after hearing Abigail this summer, and she was bouncing around before the concert just for getting to *see* her, and then we got to sit around and *chat* with her, and she complimented Anna's song and told her to come hang out at some music festival this summer (the name escapes me). I've rarely seen someone physically squee before, but Anna did the second we left the concert hall ;)
All in all, the duo was everything you want in live music: great performance, good stories, funny chemistry and camaraderie, and complete, cheerful accessibility. I had a blast. As you might have guessed.
As a temptation, I've zipped up three songs from her solo album, Song of the Traveling Daughter. The title song is an interpretation of an old Mandarin poem, with Abigail's Appalachian twist (lyrics and translation). "Coffee's Cold" makes me tap my feet, while "Sometimes" is just lovely and joyful. I should have included one of her traditional recordings (I adore "Nobody's Fault But Mine"), but I cut myself off at three. You can check her out on iTunes, or listen to clips at her homepage. Even her website is gorgeous.