Ravinia 2022, Issue 1

Bluegrass Happening Béla Fleck unbreaks the circle with new pluck BY DONA L D L I E B E N S ON BÉLA FLECK has not performed at Ravinia in 20 years. To put this in personal terms, this writer’s son was in fourth grade at the time; this fall, he is getting married. But absence does make the heart grow fonder. “For sure, I love Ravinia,” Fleck said. “I always have played there with [my group] the Flecktones, once with Nickel Creek on the bill. This one should be a blast, with my dearest friends in bluegrass playing with me.” For the June 24 reunion with the festival’s stage, those friends comprise a bluegrass dream team including 14-time Grammy-winning dobro master Jerry Douglas and three-time Grammy-winning mandolinist Sam Bush. They are touring together in support of Fleck’s first bluegrass album in two decades, My Bluegrass Heart . Released last September, it recently won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. The double-album My Bluegrass Heart forms a trilogy that began with Drive in 1988 and continued in 1991 with The Bluegrass Sessions: Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Volume 2. Why the long interim to return to his musical roots? “It was just time,” he said. “Life had been charging forward so fast, and the bluegrass portion of it wasn’t happening. It suddenly became a compulsion. Just needed to touch base with my community, I guess.” Fleck has played a pivotal role in expanding that community. He is the world’s most popularly known and honored banjo player. He is the recipient of 15 Gram- mys, according to the Recording Academy’s website. He has recorded more than 50 studio albums in various configurations, including alongside his signature band, the Flecktones; his first bluegrass ensemble, the New Grass Revival; and his wife Abigail Washburn, herself a Grammy-winning banjo player. And then there are the collaborations that have broadened the banjo’s hori- zons and, in the parlance of Star Trek , explored new life and civilizations for the ancient instrument. The banjo, with its roots in Africa and the Middle East was, in the first decades of the 20th century, the most popular instrument in Ameri- ca. Depending on your generation, it may be most associated with the Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In rural knock-off Hee Haw , Kermit the Frog strumming “The Rainbow Connection,” or comedian Steve Martin, who incorporated the banjo into his act (“Hey, he’s good,” his unctuous show biz persona joked). The title of an episode of the 2019 PBS series Sound Field would seem to suc- cinctly sum up Fleck’s musical mission statement: “It’s Time to Rethink the Ban- jo.” Fleck recorded and toured with jazz pianist Chick Corea (who died in 2021 and to whom My Bluegrass Heart is co-dedicated) and created a Grammy-win- ning classical album with bassist Edgar Meyer, Perpetual Motion . The 2008 doc- umentary Throw Down Your Heart , directed by Fleck’s brother, Sascha Paladino, chronicles Fleck’s musical pilgrimage to Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia, and Mali to explore the instrument’s African roots and to make musical connections. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JUNE 15 – JULY 3, 2022 16