Ben Sollee

Bucking Folk Music’s Rules

By Ben Grad; Photo by Mickie Winters

Folk music has never been associated with intellectualism. For the last few decades, folk and bluegrass artists have consistently strived to distance themselves from any rumor that their work is based on solid musical theory or experimentation. Instead, artists in those genres tend to portray their music as spontaneous outpourings of feeling, almost the exact opposite of classical music’s studied intellectualism.

Ben Sollee has made his career by bucking that trend, establishing himself as folk’s Thelonious Monk or John Cage - an artist whose careful experimentation within a long established genre produces unexpected and beautiful results. Sollee is helped by his choice to focus on cello, an instrument that he has popularized in mainstream folk. “After I got to college I was very frustrated playing cello, because there were all these standards, expectations of the institution of classical music about the cello,” explains Sollee. “For them, cello is only used for a specific sound and role within a larger orchestra. There’s a certain mentality, a stigma, which we’re all trying to get by.” Sollee’s folk music is both a product of his Kentucky upbringing with a family of bluegrass musicians, and an expression of his desire to escape the cello’s rigid symphonic role.

In part, Sollee’s time as a singer/songwriter and member of The Sparrow Quartet is a way of showing the cello’s musical capability to a larger audience. Sollee points out, “The cello has an extreme range of sound and expression, but it takes a while for people to figure out what to do with it – it’s sound can seem simple, but it’s really very challenging.”

Since 2005, Sollee has played in The Sparrow Quartet with Abigail Washburn (banjo/vocals), Béla Fleck (banjo) and Casey Driessen (violin). The group’s members are united by their interest in expanding the perceived ranges of their instruments, and introducing their classically tinged bluegrass/ folk sound to a larger audience. Their efforts have culminated in three separate tours of China, all of which influenced Sollee’s style. As he explains, The Sparrow Quartet’s China tours have gradually evolved the groups performances and composition.

“In China, we saw a pretty wide range of string techniques,” he says. “China is the ultimate string culture – they’ve had strings longer than anyone else. I watched and learned all these different sounds from dozens of different Chinese stringed instruments, then experimented and adapted those techniques with the cello.”

Even given all the work Sollee’s put into cello, his voice and songwriting are the most immediately recognizable elements of his sound. In his cover of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Sollee sings an almost perfect complement to Cooke’s more seasoned voice, but adapts the frequently covered song’s lyrics to match his own struggle: “I couldn’t sing the lyrics from the perspective of a black man in the ‘60s, so I worked with them, came at the lyrics from the perspective of a composer, an artist who hasn’t seen much progress but is looking forward to a life of change. I wrote from that perspective, tried to make it more of an inspirational thing than a spiritual thing.” In Sollee’s rendition, the song becomes more instrumental (listen for the cello pizzicato and string slapping) as well as more intensely personal – Sollee’s change supplements societal change with a focus on the maturation of artistry and personal philosophy. This new song is a perfect encapsulation of Sollee’s 23 years.

www.bensollee.com