Quotes by Abigail Washburn

About Abigail Washburn:

Abigail Washburn is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea th...

Abigail Washburn

My whole drive is to make sure that music is a common space where we search for beauty and share it. It needs to be louder than any conversation. That's where we have to go as a human race.

Abigail Washburn

In some ways, in the U.S. we don't know how to be. I think in a lot of ways America is about liberation and about change and progressive human relations. And because of that, I feel like that we're confused about who we're supposed to be and what it ...

Abigail Washburn

I believe in music because it has the power of change.

Abigail Washburn

'Halo' I wrote with my grandpa in his nursing home. When I went to visit him, he'd often comment on my halo. But of course, I couldn't see. And he always - he had pictures of Jesus with these beautiful halos. And so I asked him if he'd write a song w...

Abigail Washburn

I do see music as complete refuge. It's a universal home, complete common ground between everyone; it comes from a place that has no nation and no boundaries around it.

Abigail Washburn

In some ways, my most comfortable feeling has been that of being an outsider coming in, but over the years I've tired of that and I'm ready to feel at home. That's what music gives me: a feeling of absolute home.

Abigail Washburn

When I first started playing the banjo and miraculously fell into a record deal in Nashville, TN, there was a period when I didn't go to China. It hurt. Like a pain in my gut... that pain you feel when you know it's time to connect with your parents ...

Abigail Washburn

One thing I carried my whole life, especially from my grandparents in Chicago, was a huge idealism for the world.

Abigail Washburn

I reside in a new colony for the Chinese-singing banjo player, with a population of one. At least I have something I have to do with my life.

Abigail Washburn

I've moved around so much my whole life, and I've gotten so used to being the Other in situations - the foreigner, the outsider. The first time I've ever felt like there was no separation between me and the other elements was in music.

Abigail Washburn

I sang in a reggae band. And then there was a soul band where I sang back-up vocals and some lead. And I was also in a women's a capella group. And I was in the gospel choir at school. Actually, I've always been in choirs. Or some kind of group. Just...

Abigail Washburn

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

Abigail Washburn

Whenever I visited China in the past, the relationships always felt superficial; there was no time where I felt those moments of conflict and delight that make you feel close to another person. But since I started touring there in 2004, I would alway...

Abigail Washburn

I was born in Evanston, Illinois. I spent my elementary and part of my junior high school years in a D.C. suburb. And then I spent my high school years in Minnesota. And then I spent my college years in Colorado. And then I spent some time living in ...

Abigail Washburn

I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.

Abigail Washburn

I really believe in the power of music.

Abigail Washburn

You can enjoy many different types of music. I think that's something more Americans should think about.

Abigail Washburn

My parents played the radio, but music was never an obsession or something that I thought I could call a career.

Abigail Washburn

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.

Abigail Washburn

Author Bio

  • NameAbigail Washburn
  • DescriptionAmerican banjo player and singer
  • BornNovember 10, 1977
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionSinger; Banjoist