Biography
Abigail Washburn, recognized for her clawhammer banjo technique, has gained recognition as a vocalist, composer, author, and speaker. Although anchored in American folk and bluegrass, her compositions draw upon and blend international musical lineages and timbres, especially those from China, yielding an approach that registers as both evocative and fresh. This trajectory runs from her start in the feminist string ensemble Uncle Earl and her 2005 bilingual solo release Song of the Traveling Daughter through the 2008 chamber roots recording by Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet, which included her spouse, banjoist Béla Fleck, violinist Casey Driessen, and cellist Ben Sollee. Produced by Tucker Martine and co-authored with Kai Welch while spotlighting Wu Fei—her colleagues from the Wu Force trio—the 2011 album City of Refuge fused Appalachian mountain material with folk customs from the British Isles and Asia alongside jazz, rock, and pop. Washburn and Fleck received the 2016 Grammy for Best Folk Album with their self-titled duo album and issued Echo in the Valley the next year.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, Washburn completed her grade-school and middle-school years in a Washington, D.C. suburb. After finishing high school in Minnesota she entered Colorado College, becoming its inaugural East Asian studies major. She contributed backup vocals to neighborhood bar bands yet harbored no further musical goals at the time. During summers she acquired Mandarin through concentrated courses at Middlebury College in Vermont and first traveled to China in 1996. She returned in 1999 intending to obtain a law degree and pursue international law in Beijing to strengthen U.S.-Chinese ties. Mandarin came to her more rapidly than expected, and during that visit she developed a deep attachment to Chinese culture. Seeking to share elements of her own heritage, she purchased a banjo and, guided by a cherished instructor, adapted numerous Chinese songs and poems to the instrument while also investigating the abundant legacy of folk and bluegrass music. Command of the instrument developed gradually, interrupted by lengthy intervals away from it. Upon returning to Vermont and taking up activism, she received an invitation from her friends the Cleary Bros. Band to join their tour after they lost their banjoist ahead of an Alaska run. She dusted off the instrument and undertook an intensive regimen to reach performance level, ultimately becoming a member of the Cleary Bros. Band.
Stage work suited her immediately, and she soon assumed lead vocals with the ensemble as well. Following the tour Washburn resolved to pursue a fuller musical existence. She relocated to Nashville, continued banjo lessons, and commenced songwriting. In 2004 she encountered Jingli Jurca, who assisted with her first Chinese-language song, and K.C. Groves, a founder of the old-time string band Uncle Earl. Washburn joined the band’s second lineup and appeared on its 2005 album She Waits for Night. Maintaining solo prospects, she submitted her composition “Rockabye Dixie” to the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest, where it placed second and drew the notice of Nettwerk Records.
After signing with the label Washburn undertook a brief China tour before returning to record her debut alongside accomplished players including Béla Fleck, Jordan McConnell of the Duhks, and Ryan Hoyle of Collective Soul. The resulting Song of the Traveling Daughter emerged in 2005, after which she revisited Asia with the Sparrow Quartet—comprising Fleck, fiddle virtuoso Casey Driessen, and cellist Ben Sollee—on a U.S. government-sponsored journey that marked her as the first musical artist to receive such backing. The Sparrow Quartet’s 2008 release Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet investigated a fusion of Eastern and Western folk traditions.
In 2010 Washburn, trumpeter and composer Kai Welch, and Chinese-born zither player Wu Fei convened in a Beijing apartment and formed the Wu Force trio through collective playing, conversation, and improvisation. Their output resists categorization and draws from pop, garage rock, traditional Chinese classical sources, and Appalachian folk. The participants adjusted to one another’s varied palettes and realized a shared caution toward trends in globalization, urbanization, and technology. In January 2011 Washburn issued her third album on Rounder; titled City of Refuge, it was produced by Tucker Martine (who also contributed drums) and co-written with Kai Welch, with featured guests including Bill Frisell, Jeremy Kittel, Viktor Krauss, and Kenny Malone.
By year’s end she concluded a month-long tour along China’s Silk Road underwritten by grants from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The following year Washburn was designated a TED fellow and delivered the 2012 TED Convention address “Building U.S.-China relations…by Banjo.” In March 2013 New York Voices and the NY Public Theater commissioned her to create and premiere the theatrical piece Post-American Girl, which draws on her seventeen-year engagement with China and explores themes of expanding identity, cultural relativism, pilgrimage, the universal resonance of music, and the capacity of the heart to encompass all. She was appointed the first U.S.-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University.
Following an international tour and the birth of their son, Washburn and Fleck fulfilled a longstanding ambition by recording a collaborative album. The self-titled collection featured originals, traditional material, and an extensive reinterpretation of Béla Bartók via a medley of two sections from the composer’s “For Children” and “Children’s Dance.” Released by Rounder in October 2014, the album earned the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album the next year.
In 2017 Washburn and her husband joined dance theater troupe Pilobolus on Echo in the Valley, an original commission from the American Dance Theater. The title and portions of the material appeared on Washburn and Fleck’s second duo release, which finds the pair playing seven distinct banjos “ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo.” Stressing three-finger and clawhammer approaches, the arrangements mirror the demands of live presentation. Beyond adaptations of traditional pieces such as Clarence Ashley’s “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” (rendered here as a blues) and a studio version of their frequently performed live medley “Sally in the Garden”/“Molly Put the Kettle On,” the remaining tracks were co-written by Washburn and Fleck and reflect varied narrative perspectives along with historical and topical themes. Echo in the Valley appeared in October 2017.
Following international touring, writing sessions, and the arrival of a second child, Washburn resumed recording with Smithsonian Folkways on the collaborative Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn, which merges traditional Chinese and Appalachian folk melodies.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, Washburn completed her grade-school and middle-school years in a Washington, D.C. suburb. After finishing high school in Minnesota she entered Colorado College, becoming its inaugural East Asian studies major. She contributed backup vocals to neighborhood bar bands yet harbored no further musical goals at the time. During summers she acquired Mandarin through concentrated courses at Middlebury College in Vermont and first traveled to China in 1996. She returned in 1999 intending to obtain a law degree and pursue international law in Beijing to strengthen U.S.-Chinese ties. Mandarin came to her more rapidly than expected, and during that visit she developed a deep attachment to Chinese culture. Seeking to share elements of her own heritage, she purchased a banjo and, guided by a cherished instructor, adapted numerous Chinese songs and poems to the instrument while also investigating the abundant legacy of folk and bluegrass music. Command of the instrument developed gradually, interrupted by lengthy intervals away from it. Upon returning to Vermont and taking up activism, she received an invitation from her friends the Cleary Bros. Band to join their tour after they lost their banjoist ahead of an Alaska run. She dusted off the instrument and undertook an intensive regimen to reach performance level, ultimately becoming a member of the Cleary Bros. Band.
Stage work suited her immediately, and she soon assumed lead vocals with the ensemble as well. Following the tour Washburn resolved to pursue a fuller musical existence. She relocated to Nashville, continued banjo lessons, and commenced songwriting. In 2004 she encountered Jingli Jurca, who assisted with her first Chinese-language song, and K.C. Groves, a founder of the old-time string band Uncle Earl. Washburn joined the band’s second lineup and appeared on its 2005 album She Waits for Night. Maintaining solo prospects, she submitted her composition “Rockabye Dixie” to the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at MerleFest, where it placed second and drew the notice of Nettwerk Records.
After signing with the label Washburn undertook a brief China tour before returning to record her debut alongside accomplished players including Béla Fleck, Jordan McConnell of the Duhks, and Ryan Hoyle of Collective Soul. The resulting Song of the Traveling Daughter emerged in 2005, after which she revisited Asia with the Sparrow Quartet—comprising Fleck, fiddle virtuoso Casey Driessen, and cellist Ben Sollee—on a U.S. government-sponsored journey that marked her as the first musical artist to receive such backing. The Sparrow Quartet’s 2008 release Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet investigated a fusion of Eastern and Western folk traditions.
In 2010 Washburn, trumpeter and composer Kai Welch, and Chinese-born zither player Wu Fei convened in a Beijing apartment and formed the Wu Force trio through collective playing, conversation, and improvisation. Their output resists categorization and draws from pop, garage rock, traditional Chinese classical sources, and Appalachian folk. The participants adjusted to one another’s varied palettes and realized a shared caution toward trends in globalization, urbanization, and technology. In January 2011 Washburn issued her third album on Rounder; titled City of Refuge, it was produced by Tucker Martine (who also contributed drums) and co-written with Kai Welch, with featured guests including Bill Frisell, Jeremy Kittel, Viktor Krauss, and Kenny Malone.
By year’s end she concluded a month-long tour along China’s Silk Road underwritten by grants from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. The following year Washburn was designated a TED fellow and delivered the 2012 TED Convention address “Building U.S.-China relations…by Banjo.” In March 2013 New York Voices and the NY Public Theater commissioned her to create and premiere the theatrical piece Post-American Girl, which draws on her seventeen-year engagement with China and explores themes of expanding identity, cultural relativism, pilgrimage, the universal resonance of music, and the capacity of the heart to encompass all. She was appointed the first U.S.-China Fellow at Vanderbilt University.
Following an international tour and the birth of their son, Washburn and Fleck fulfilled a longstanding ambition by recording a collaborative album. The self-titled collection featured originals, traditional material, and an extensive reinterpretation of Béla Bartók via a medley of two sections from the composer’s “For Children” and “Children’s Dance.” Released by Rounder in October 2014, the album earned the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album the next year.
In 2017 Washburn and her husband joined dance theater troupe Pilobolus on Echo in the Valley, an original commission from the American Dance Theater. The title and portions of the material appeared on Washburn and Fleck’s second duo release, which finds the pair playing seven distinct banjos “ranging from a ukulele to an upright bass banjo.” Stressing three-finger and clawhammer approaches, the arrangements mirror the demands of live presentation. Beyond adaptations of traditional pieces such as Clarence Ashley’s “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains” (rendered here as a blues) and a studio version of their frequently performed live medley “Sally in the Garden”/“Molly Put the Kettle On,” the remaining tracks were co-written by Washburn and Fleck and reflect varied narrative perspectives along with historical and topical themes. Echo in the Valley appeared in October 2017.
Following international touring, writing sessions, and the arrival of a second child, Washburn resumed recording with Smithsonian Folkways on the collaborative Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn, which merges traditional Chinese and Appalachian folk melodies.
Albums
Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn
2020
Echo In The Valley
2017
Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn
2014
City of Refuge
2011
Afterquake
2009
Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet
2008
The Sparrow Quartet
2006
Song of the Traveling Daughter
2005
Singles
