Abigail Washburn was Colorado College's first East Asian studies major, spent summers in intensive Mandarin immersion programs in Vermont, first visited China in 1996, and planned a career in international law. Then a five-day silent meditation retreat at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, taken during a road trip before her planned move to China, dissolved that plan and left her with a sudden drive to pursue music. This episode explains how she arrived in Nashville with a clawhammer banjo, toured for five years with the all-female old-time band Uncle Earl, and won second place at the 2004 MerleFest songwriting contest with Rockabye Dixie, which led to her debut solo album Song of the Traveling Daughter, produced by Bela Fleck.

We follow her return to China in 2005 with the Sparrow Quartet, the U.S. government's 2006 request that they t ...