Béla Fleck and Abigal Washburn’s musical marriage isn’t as simple as it seems

It’s a simple formula if one were to examine it on paper. At work are two scholarly musical voyagers playing a pair of acoustic instruments. There is no electric amplification, no band support and no additional elements aside from the fact that one of the players also is a world-class vocalist.

Now alter those designations with these factoids. The instruments are both banjos, hardly the expected vehicles for an unaccompanied musical duo. Then there is the matter of the two artists behind the strings being husband and wife.

Finally, add this: the banjo players are Béla Fleck, the bluegrass-bred journeyman who is easily the most recognized modern purveyor of the instrument, and Abigail Washburn, whose preferences run from pre-bluegrass “old time” string music to inspirations reaching into the deepest terrains of Chinese culture.

Still think we’re discussing simplicity?

“When we started doing this, it was a new thing,” Fleck said. “We sounded pretty good right away, but it was always this thing of a new group — something brand-new. Now we’ve been doing it for four years. We’re really inside of our duo. We understand the point of view of each other, rhythmically speaking, with our two banjos, which are basically percussion instruments. Finding that middle, though, has only happened gradually.

“Let me put it this way: Bluegrass guys tend to play on the front end of the beat. We prioritize that sense of drive, that feeling of speeding up without actually rushing, or else rushing so slightly that it doesn’t matter. Old-time players, where Abby comes from, like to sit on the back of the beat and sort of chug along behind the train. That’s been the most challenging aspect of the two-banjo sound coming together, because once we find that middle, boy, everything locks like a steel trap.”

The second chapter in the couple’s double-banjo odyssey arrived this past fall in the form of a sophomore album, “Echo in the Valley.” Like their onstage shows, there is no additional instrumentation other than the banjo sounds and very modest percussion that the two bring to the music, most of which they co-wrote. The resulting tunes touch on blues, bluegrass, clawhammer-inspired banjo tradition and much more. But like their first record, a self-titled 2014 duo debut, “Echo” is a family affair. The couple’s son Juno, now 4, played a key role in the records’ design even if he has yet to make a formal musical appearance.

“The first one was done under pretty intense circumstances of having an infant at the same time we were trying to record,” Washburn said. “It shaped the album significantly by not having very much time or energy. Now our son is in pre-school, so during the day, Béla and I are able to work together. The new one is a really different album. We decided we wanted to write songs together from scratch — the tunes, the melodies, the lyrics, all of it.

“Some of those are things we haven’t done much of, like Bela with the lyric writing and me, specifically, with melodic writing that doesn’t have to do with a singing melody. So it was really exciting to push each other. We didn’t always like each other’s ideas, so it was difficult in some instances. But luckily we had enough wisdom to just stop every once in a while and come back to it later, so this was a true collaboration.”

The inspirations fueling “Echo in the Valley” differ dramatically from song to song. The album-opening original “Over the Divide” began as an instrumental tune but eventually took on a narrative based around the remarkable story of Hans Breuer, a yodeling shepherd who helped save the lives of Syrian refugees by guiding them from Hungary into his native Austria. But there is also a wild interpretation of “My Home’s Across the Blue Ridge Mountains,” often played as a dire but driving acoustic roots piece but recast by Fleck and Washburn as a blues with a riotous vocal build from Fleck and treacherous slide banjo colors by Washburn.

“The duo is the priority because it keeps the family together, where we don’t have to be separated with Papa out on tour and Mama at home with the kids,” Fleck said.

“As long we can both move up and down the necks and I can sing without too much of a warble, I think we’ll probably do this into our older years,” Washburn said. “So it’s a priority for both of us.

“As time goes on, Béla and I would like to have another kid. Juno will be in school full time, so those things will probably keep me home a little bit more, which I welcome. That means Béla will probably go out a little bit more without us, which I welcome, too, because, well … because he’s Béla Fleck.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Béla Fleck and Abigal Washburn’s musical marriage isn’t as simple as it seems."