First of all, any piece of art, be it a painting, a poem or a record, usually - if it's good - tells the story about what goes on in the mind and soul of the artist at this given moment in time when it was made. Could you sum up what City of Refuge tells about you as an artist, in general and when you wrote and recorded it?

The making of City of Refuge has been journey of enormous proportion and significance in my life. First of all, the music itself continues to reveal it's own powers over me as I continually play it live... words and characters in the songs channel new and deeper meanings as they embed themselves further into my psyche and become a part of an audience as well.

Secondly, the collaborations necessary to make this music, both the recorded and live versions, are varied, unexpected and life-changing. 2 years ago I didn't even know at least half of the people on the record... I have found musical friendships over the last little bit that have totally changed my musical and personal trajectory. Tucker Martine, the producer, brought a whole new transformative set of expectations and ideas to my musical orientation... he wanted live, intuited beauty to fill the sonic landscape of this record as opposed to music driven by tradition (Uncle Earl) or intentional composed continuity & improvisation (Sparrow Quartet). For the first time I felt a real freedom to base the music on what felt right, what felt beautiful and promising for the hopes of the song itself... it allowed for magic and spontaneity. Kai Welch, brought a collaboration of immense proportions turning my banjo and vocal sounds and songwriting into a fusion with his own rich past with rock and pop and even classical influences. City of Refuge sounds the way it does hugely due to the fact that everything filtered through him as well.

It took a whole community of artists to make this music.. and it changed me! Although on this May tour I will be experimenting with a stripped down version of the music performing only with Kai Welch, we will be back in July with the expanded band including a fiddler/violist, drummer, bass/pedal steel player, Kai Welch on guitar/trumpet/keys/vocals. The expanded band we are calling "The Village" mostly because we have formed a strong bond as a community of musicians... and teh amount of time we have spent on the road with one another and expanding the community to every town we go to makes us feel like we are a moving location... a warm pile of friends & musicians enveloping new community members everywhere we go. The point of the music is to open our hearts and form a line of connection with all who hear it for a world blossoming into a fuller expression of compassion and love.

I know you've probably answered this question a zillion times before, but having spent some of your life in China, is there a certain Chinese/oriental inspiration to your music? I'm not sure I can tell you exactly what it is, but there's something about the tenderness and lightness of this album that reminds me of China. Am I way off here?

It wasn't until I had spent several years in China that I realized I wanted to learn a string-ed instrument, specifically the banjo because of its ties to traditional US culture.  I had spent so much time studying and loving China that one day I wole up and realized that I hardly knew a thing about my own trad cultural roots. It was when I heard Doc Watson playing and singing Shady Grove off an old LP that I knew I needed to buy a banjo and learn that song- it was just so primal and rooted and powerful, familiar and yet ancoent. Little did I know the banjo is the perfect window into US roots music because it arrived with the earliest immigrants and evolved into a beloved and statedly "American" sound. Strangely I had a reverse experience from most musicians in terms of my path to the stage and professional musician status and writing. It felt like I was literally "chosen".

The first song I wrote was in English, Rockabye Dixie. The second song I wrote was in Chinese, Song of the Traveling Daughter. It was totally natural. China is why I play music. And I know I have a distinct voice largely because the whole reason I make music is to find harmony between cultures, but more importantly, people... no matter who they are or where they come from. I don't play music for music itself but for what it can do to create a world we want to live in together.

AND to finally answer your question, no, you are not way off base in thinking that there is a thread between the sounds of China and what is on this album. Firstly, my own musical orientation started with China and the sounds of Chinese music leading back to my own culture's sounds. When I lived in Chengdu in the late 90s and then Beijing in the early 2000's I would go to shows at the local tea houses of "classical" chinese folk music. I listened to the sounds of the pipa, zhongruan, dizi, erhu and guzheng lilt thru the melodies of the sounds of nature and the over arching dominant, magical and mysterious power of nature. No sound ever yielded to a strict sense of rythm or pocket and every touch of the string was infused with an absolute mission to express the beauty of an abstract concept. This kind of bowing to the greatness of something outside of one self, the greatness of a landscape we can only try to capture a fleeting moment of in a sound ... this is the kind of surrender I look for in the music I make. A bowing to the greater abstract need for expression that a song has in the world as opposed the the striving of the individual to be heard... this is where my soul falls kindred to the sounds of china. Secondly, there is actually and truly the sound of a great Chinese musician all over the record. The great guzheng player from Beijing, Wufei, a dear friend and one of the finest musicians on the globe lends her sounds to 1/3 of the songs on the record. Thirdly, Jeremy Kittel's string parts often honor minimalization and expression in a way and with a technique that we often described during the recording process as "Eastern swoops"

Where does your musical voice come from? What is is that draws you towards your music, draws you towards this way of expressing yourself?

My musical voice comes from early life depression defeated by hope, creation within extreme technical limitations (i am a late-in-life starter on the banjo), the voices of greats before me (Blind Willie Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Hazel Dickens, Almeda Riddle, Roscoe Holcomb, Ralph Stanley, Zhou Xuan)and last but certainly not least my musical voice comes from an intense faith that sound and beauty create love and compassion. Music has made me realize that peace starts in the hearts of people, not at the negotiating table... change hearts and the world is created in its image. Hatred should fear its imminent demise.

We're about the same age. I know a few Creedence songs on the guitar, but only the ones that pretty much stick to the G-Em-C-D-Am chord progression. You, on the other hand, are among the world's best banjo players. When did you first start playing this instrument, and what made you stay in your room and practise when I was out partying?

I wish I could accept your compliment that I am one of the great banjo players. I do believe that I have a unique voice on the banjo that is largely driven by my early lessons from the great Riley Baugus, playing for years with the great fiddler Rayna Gellert, learning from the accuracy and beauty of Bela Fleck and also from a love of the ring and beauty of an open-tuned banjo for creating accompaniment to songs. I am not, however, a player with technical prowess or virtuosic tendencies. I do not strive to create new patterns or challenge the speed and accuracy and difficulty of performance. Still, I wasn't at the party... I was probably home geeking out on a Martin Luther King Jr quote book.

Could you please tell me about your style of playing, clawhammer? I know it's the way Roscoe Holcomb plays, and he's one of my favorite artists, but what is clawhammer exactly?

My current style of playing is largely based on a four day experience I had learning from Riley Baugus at his home in Walkertown, NC in 2005. He welcomed me in to his home after getting a call from Rayna Gellert referring me to him. Riley Baugus learned from the greats of round peak style old time music traditionalists Fred Cockerham & Tommy Jarrell as well as folks like Doc Watson and old recordings from the 20's, 30s and 40s. I have continued to try to learn the music of Riley on his records from the few days I had learning the basic technique he uses to make his playing sound the way that it does.

Clawhammer is a technique for playing the banjo that is a style of frailing... some people don't differentiate between the two styles, others, like myself do. Ultimately this argument doesn't matter that much because in the folk banjo tradition every banjo player tends to develop their own idiomatic style based on the oral tradition of learning from hearing as opposed to following a prescribed and specific technique for passing along a certain codified version of tradition. Clawhammer in general looks like what it sounds like. The hand makes a claw-like shape and the strumming finger is kept stiff, striking the strings by the motion of the hand at the wrist, elbow or shoulder, rather than a flicking motion by the finger (like in bluegrass or "picking" styles on the banjo)... only the thumb and middle or index finger are used and the finger always downpicks, hitting the string with the back of the fingernail. The result is a very rythmic/syncopated sound when the drone string is played as it characteristically is on the off-beat and the left-hand pulls off on the strings at the neck while dropping the thumb to create melodic noting replacing the syncopated hit on the drone. Round peak as I know it is meant to create a syncopated rhythmic bed for a fiddler. The drop thumb is utilized to create melodic variation with a strong syncopated pulse. This technique has a strong connection to the roots of the banjo and ultimately American music to its roots in west african music (check out the Gambian ankonting)
I find clawhammer technique to be one of the most inspiring sounds to build songs around. In the clawhammer old time tradition it is widely accepted that the banjo should be left in opening tunings to maximize the resonance of the tones in the round/warm drum-like head. I find this resonance to be inspiring lyrically. I love to experiment with writing songs based on the mode and mood of different open tunings. The only negative aspect of this kind of songwriting is that it can leave me in a bind on stage, playing live in front of audiences, having to re-tune my banjos for every song... it's worth it though.

Your music has been described as everything from bluegrass to Americana and old-time. But when I listen to songs like Last Train or Burn Thru, there's something else in there, something that doesn't fit in with the notion of what a "banjo-driven" album should sound like. I hate this word, but it actually sounds like you're trying to break any boundaries that folk music might have. What's your musical vision?

I'm not sure what it is and I don't think too much about naming it, I just love being in the middle of whatever IT is. Bring it.

You've worked and toured with the bluegrass-band Uncle Earl. John Paul Jones produced one of their records. Given that you got to meet him, could you please tell me what working with the bass player from Led Zeppelin was like?

My connection to the UK began with the maestro John Paul Jones. Lucky for Uncle Earl, the all 'g-earl' string band I was in for 5 years, JPJ was in love with old time music. He came to a US folk festival called Merlefest where he met & connected with Rayna Gellert (fiddler for Uncle Earl), and I got to meet him ever so briefly as well. When the band was brainstorming producers we thought of him although we couldn't imagine he'd even consider the notion, but Rayna reached out any way. And MUCH to our surprise he agreed to produce us!  Its been a magical friendship that has had long-lasting positive impact on me as well as all the other 'g'earls. He is earnestly, playfully and passionately in love with music. Thru his technical skills and passion he facilitates great things to happen... he was a fantastic producer for Uncle Earl... and he's got GREAT stories.

Abigail Washburn's City of Refuge is out now on Rounder.