Bluegrass With A Red Tint

Bluegrass With A Red Tint

Abigail Washburn's sound is a mash-up of old-timey Americana and Chinese tradition.


Brian Braiker
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 12:54 PM ET Jul 11, 2008

Abigail Washburn is sitting on a bench in New York's Battery Park City on a recent afternoon, the Statue of Liberty standing at attention just beyond the water's edge. Tourists stop to snap photos, buy trinkets, get panhandled. Washburn is herself a fellow traveler: her touring band, the Sparrow Quartet, will play a set of free old-timey music in about an hour—Americana for the masses at just about the spot where so many got their first view of America. So it proves almost too poetic when five new-timey Chinese businessmen in natty tailored suits drift by. Washburn, who excels at putting herself in uncomfortable situations, approaches them—every inch an American girl under a tumble of curls—and asks, in Mandarin, "Where in China are you from?" The alpha suit in the group, briefly startled, answers: "Beijing." Washburn continues, in Chinese, "I've been to Beijing so many times. I'm a musician and we're performing here tonight." He waves, edging away. "We'll come back."

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