Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Ben Sollee – A Few Honest Words

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Ben Sollee – Bend

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Ben Sollee – A Change Is Gonna Come

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

MP3: Ben Sollee – Dear Kanye

You may or may not recall one of last year’s most remarkable releases, the self-titled LP from Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet.  I can’t emphasize enough how truly innovative that album is.

But it turns out 1/4 of the Sparrows, Louisville KY-hailing cellist Ben Sollee, happens to have some rather remarkable solo work as well.  Much like his elder contemporaries in the Sparrow Quartet (notably the legendary Béla Fleck who we interviewed here), Sollee takes his instrument of choice and stretches its sound to the limits, adeptly bowing, plucking, slapping, bending tones to his will.  Impeccably nuanced playing that steadily morphs from technical origins in classical conservatories to traditional styles rooted in deep rural, urban and mainstream America.

Read the rest…