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The rustic, wide-ranging sounds of singer/songwriter Abigail Washburn appear so genuine and natural, they must come from a person who grew up surrounded by folk and bluegrass. The way Washburn developed her style is much more complicated, however, as it involves China, lost banjos, and the rock group Collective Soul. Although Washburn grew up singing, she had no desire to become a professional musician, and part-time gigs as a backup vocalist in reggae, gospel, and R&B bands were nothing more than fun activities. But a trip to China in 1996 changed all that. Picking up the native language faster than she imagined and falling in love with Chinese culture, the young Washburn began to change her priorities. Reconsidering the culture of her own homeland, she bought a banjo and decided to explore the rich heritage of folk and bluegrass music. Mastery of the instrument didn't happen right away, and fans of Washburn's banjo style might be shocked to learn she went years without even touching the instrument. Later, she was living in Vermont and working as an activist when her good friends the Cleary Brothers lost their banjo player after scheduling a tour of Alaska. Blowing the dust off her banjo, Washburn began a crash course in playing the instrument, eventually joined the Cleary Brothers, and was soon off on her first tour.
Performing in front of an audience fit like a glove, and soon Washburn was assuming lead vocals as well. With the tour completed, Nashville was the budding musician's next stop. While living there, she continued her banjo studies and began to write songs. In 2004, she met Jing Li Jurca, who would help her write her first song in Chinese, as well as K.C. Groves, a founding member of the old-timey string band Uncle Earl. Washburn joined the second incarnation of Uncle Earl and appeared on the band's 2005 album, She Waits for Night. Keeping her solo options open, Washburn then entered her song "Rockabye Dixie" into the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest. The tune took second place and attracted the attention of Nettwerk Records. After signing with the label, Washburn played a mini-tour of China before returning home to record her debut with such accomplished musicians as Béla Fleck, Jordan McConnell of the Duhks, and Ryan Hoyle of Collective Soul. The resulting Song of the Traveling Daughter appeared in 2005, and Washburn returned to the Asian continent to tour as part of the Sparrow Quartet (which also comprised Fleck, fiddle virtuoso Casey Driessen, and cellist Ben Sollee). The U.S. government sponsored the tour, making Washburn the first musical artist to receive such an honor. The Sparrow Quartet joined her on the trip, and the group explored a blend of Eastern and Western folk traditions on their 2008 effort, Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet. In January of 2011, Washburn released her third effort, issued on Rounder, entitled City of Refuge, was produced by Tucker Martine (who also played drums on the set). The set featured a slew of guests including Bill Frisell, Jeremy Kittel, Viktor Krauss, and Kenny Malone, to name a few.
from Wikipedia:
Abigail Washburn (born November 10, 1979 in Evanston, Illinois, USA) is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet.
Biography
Washburn was born in Evanston, Illinois and spent her elementary and part of her junior high school years in a suburb of Washington, D.C.. She attended high school in Minnesota, then attended Colorado College, where she was the school's first East Asian studies major. Following this, she spent some time living in China, where she had dreams of being a lawyer (having first visited that nation in 1996). She then spent three years in Vermont before moving to Nashville, Tennessee.
In Tennessee, she met KC Groves, one of the founding members of the band Uncle Earl and she went on to spend five years touring with the band. The "all G'earl" group has released two records on the Rounder Records record label, She Waits for the Night (2005) and Waterloo, TN (2007), which was produced by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin.
Washburn entered a songwriting contest at MerleFest (a bluegrass music festival in North Carolina), winning second place for her song "Rockabye Dixie", and gaining the attention of the Nettwerk record label.
Her first solo album, Song of the Traveling Daughter, was produced by Béla Fleck and features Ben Sollee, a cellist, and Jordan McConnell, guitarist for the Canadian traditional and soul music fusion band The Duhks. Two songs were recorded in the Mandarin Chinese language, which she learned while living in China.
In 2005, Washburn returned to China with a group called the Sparrow Quartet, composed of Sollee, Fleck and Grammy Award nominated fiddler Casey Driessen. The group then recorded an EP, Abigail Washburn The Sparrow Quartet.
In 2008, Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet recorded a full-length album, Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet. It was produced by Béla Fleck and composed and arranged by the foursome.
After the release of the album, Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet turned their attention to touring North America, with appearances at festivals including New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, MerleFest, Bonnaroo Music Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival and others. They returned to China for performances during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The quartet was later featured on National Geographic Live and, in 2009, each participated in the Clearwater Concert, a benefit concert in honor of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday that featured many of the world's most well-known musicians.
Inspired by a 2008 volunteer experience for Sichuan Quake Relief in China, Abigail joined forces with Shanghai Restoration Project's David Liang in March 2009 to create Afterquake. The benefit EP (a portion of each sale benefits Sichuan Quake Relief) was released on May 12, 2009, the one-year anniversary of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake. Over the course of two weeks, Washburn & Liang recorded and produced the entire project, which features electronic mixes of student voices and sounds from the disaster zone, in Sichuan, China.
In early 2010, Washburn began recording her second solo album with producer Tucker Martine and collaborator Kai Welch [1].
Personal life
In August 2007, Washburn was reported as being the "girlfriend" of Béla Fleck. In September 2008, Fleck was alleged to be the "boyfriend" of Abigail Washburn. In May 2009, the Bluegrass Intelligencer satirized the upcoming wedding of Washburn and Fleck, joking that the couple promise to have a "male heir" who will be the "Holy Banjo Emperor". In February 2010, The Aspen Times reported that Washburn had become Fleck's wife in the previous year. In a July 2010 interview, Washburn said she first met her husband in Nashville at a square dance—she was dancing and he was playing.
