Béla Fleck and the Flecktones

What was that trigger that's like, hey, I wanna pick up this five-string?

You know, um, well, the early, the s- the setup to it was like I went to see, I went and saw Chick Corea and the Flecktones at-

Yes

...

the Wiltern in 2019 and, um, and I, it was the, like the, you know, best show of my life, you know? [laughs] I mean, like it was amazing.

Yeah, 'cause it's Bela Fleck, right? Like-

It was Bela and the Flecktones with Howard Levy and, and it was Chick Corea Electric Band with, uh, Patitucci and, and all them guys and it was a phenomenal show and my friends and I were like...

It was like you would think we were at a football game, you know? We're like, "What?" You know, like standing up out of our chairs.

Uh, your muscles spasm uncontrollably.

Uh, Victor Wooten from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, a bass player, he had-- his hand spasms.

Um, my friend Craig Klein has a difficulty when he plays trombone.

Um, uh, Jimmy Robinson.

It is.

Yeah, I got into music through the banjo, and when I was in high school, I fell in love with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.

Oh, yeah.

Béla lives here in Nashville, and incredible banjo player, visionary, writer, just a total maverick on the instrument, you know? And just, uh, such an incredible player and inspiration.

I read it was Victor Wooten's birthday yesterday.

He was born September 11th, 1962, bass player from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones of the Wooten Brothers.

One of Roth's

favorite musicians.

And my brother is four years older than me, so they got really into music and going to shows.

And I guess really probably the thing that really did it was still a defining – live music experience for me was Bela Fleck and the Flecktones came to town and were playing at the Tivoli.

I didn't know anything about them.

My brother and my dad were going.

playing music and hanging at that time it's pretty wild that's incredible

man yeah uh all right so john mayer dmb and then one of our other favorite bands you got baila fleck and the flecktones who you toured with um you know uh how did that come about and um you know i it's a cool collaboration world with Dave when he, he puts everyone together.

And I just imagine a fiddle with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones would sound incredible.

What, tell us about that.

Yeah.

And so I was always paying attention to the stuff that he was doing.

And just like, he always had the top caliber player, caliber players, fiddle players playing with him and just musicians, like any musician who played with him was top.

And my first, I worked with him a lot and still do, and it wasn't always with Flecktones, cause he's, you know, like you mentioned the collaborations, he's done so many different musical collaborations.

And those are two different things to me.

You know, like Rafa and I went and saw Bella Fleck and the Flecktones.

I admire them.

I admire their musicianship.

So they're simple songs.

And, you know, you're fun, you're singing Africa, and you're doing it on time.

So the very next night, Roth takes me to go see Bella Fleck and the Flecktones.

And... amazing at their musicianship just watching watching them play watching the interaction box and the complexity of what they were doing but the song structure well there really wasn't any song structure so

And this is stuff that I've seen Trey Wellington do.

And of course, Bela Fleck has won Grammys in jazz with the Flecktones.

And I've never gone that far into the jazz world like those guys do, but I gave myself permission to be able to play jazz tunes because Earl Scruggs did it.

So Earl Scruggs, early on, in addition to Foggy Mountain Breakdown and the tunes that he did, he did tunes like the Bugle Call Rag, which was... which was a tune that, I guess, Glenn Miller Orchestra did.