Abigail Washburn is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She has performed and recorded with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and the Sparrow Quartet, and recently released her second album, City of Refuge.

Washburn – now based in Nashville - is every bit as interested in the present and the future as she is in the past, and every bit as attuned to the global as she is to the local. She pairs venerable folk elements with far-flung sounds, and the results feel both strangely familiar and unlike anything anybody’s ever heard before. To put it another way, she changes what seems possible. City of Refuge is destined to be on many ‘best of 2011’ lists. Mojo magazine described the album as ‘something astonishing’ (4-stars), the New York Daily News hailed ‘a newly-inspired genre’, and others have drawn comparisons with Springsteen’s Nebraska.

www.abigailwashburn.com

PLEASE NOTE: This event takes place at Pleasance Cabaret Bar, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh EH8 9TJ
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