Photo credit: Nick Semrad
If anyone attending Wednesday night’s Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn concert at The Pabst Theater felt the “dim horror” of hearing nothing but banjo music for a couple of hours, they were likely disabused of that dread by the time the show let out. There may be no two more versatile stylists of the instrument, so often an object of derision in popular culture, making music on it nowadays.
Almost certainly there can be no other married couple so adept at the banjo nor more responsible for its modern day assimilation into more genres beyond the bluegrass and country where its profile is highest. Accomplished as that may make Fleck and Washburn, they exude a homey, occasionally self-deprecating sense of humor that makes them approachable regardless of their accolades.
Their homeyness doubtless derives at least in part from their own domesticity. The birth of their son, Juno, a couple years ago gave them impetus to take some time off from a hectic work schedule and record their first album together, 2014's Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn. With its inclusion of numbers such as show-opening kiddie standard “(I’ve Been Working On The) Railroad,” “Little Birdie” and the instrumental “For Children: No 3 Quasi adagio, No 10 Allegro molto—Children’s Dance,” it’s easy to hear the project as a dedication to their youngster.
In part, anyway. Fleck and Washburn weren’t out to be The Wiggles with added twang either. A newfangled murder ballad of Washburn’s composition, a rejoinder to the form’s preponderance of women who meet their demise by men’s hands, is far from a contender for “Sesame Street.” The song and Washburn’s enjoyment of such songs did, however, inspire some of the duo’s frequent comedic banter. Their repartee mirrored the sharp ripostes of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara much as it did a more cosmopolitan, yet as heartwarming, “Mike and Molly.” A double bill of Fleck and Wasburn and Steve Martin in bluegrass mode (one can dream!) has potential to be as much a laugh riot as it would be a display of virtuosity.
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Washburn provided some of the more autobiographical and interactive yuks of the night. The former derived from her recollection of driving from Chicago while pregnant to meet her other half after a Milwaukee performance of his. She got the audience in on the act by requesting a word to rhyme with Milwaukee to improvise a verse to The Coon Creek Girls’ “Banjo Pickin’ Girl.” The winning word? Sheboygan. And yes, another of the twosome’s comic exchanges followed her purposeful non-rhyme.
Less successful was her attempt to sing one of the night’s gospel numbers without a microphone. Though she enjoined her listeners to sing along with her on the chorus as she stood on the lip of the stage, she doesn’t quite possess the vocal gusto to fill the hall without amplification. Greater artistic success came with her a cappella rendition of a virulently anti-capitalism coal mining ballad by Sarah Ogan Guning. Fleck got in his own solo licks as well, one of them a lengthy piece into which he interpolated a bit of “The Beverly Hillbillies” theme.
Their final song of the night was the first they performed in public, at Washburn’s grandmother’s church. “His Eye is On the Sparrow” afforded Abigail some of her most bravura vocalizing and a hopeful note to dismiss the Pabst’s nearly full lower level. Here’s hoping the happy couple may return to Milwaukee soon.
