1 a Conversation with Abigail Washburn by Frank
A Conversation with Abigail Washburn by Frank Goodman (9/2005, Puremusic.com) It’s curious in the arts, especially music, that success or notoriety can sometimes come more easily to those who started late, or never even planned to be an artist in the first place. But perhaps, by the time that music seriously enters their life, people they’ve met or other things that they’ve done or been interact with that late-breaking musical urge and catalytically convert it into something that works, takes shape or even wings. And so many who may have played the same instrument or sung or composed the same style of music all their lives may never have been rewarded, or at least noticed, for a life’s work. Timing, including the totality of what one brings to the table at that particular time, seems to be what matters. Or destiny, perhaps, if one believes in such a thing. By the time that musical destiny came knocking at Abigail Washburn’s door, her young life was already paved with diverse experiences. She’d gone abroad to China in her freshman year at college, and it changed her fundamentally. She became so interested in that culture and that tradition that it blossomed into a similar interest in her own culture when she returned, and she went deeply into the music of Doc Watson and other mountain music figures, into old time and clawhammer banjo music in particular. She’d sung extensively in choral groups already, so that came naturally. She was working as a lobbyist and living in Vermont, and had close friends who were a string band.
[Show full text]