Sollee rocks solo on cello

The cello is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when one muses about musical instruments that go well with folk, rock, bluegrass or rhythm and blues.

Ben Sollee is changing that. After uncasing his cello, he often plays it with an abandon that makes it appear as if it’s fighting back.

The Kentuckian will be thumping, plucking and sawing on his musical tool of choice Saturday evening at the Southern Cafe and Music Hall in Charlottesville. This is one of his first stops on a tour to support his latest album, “Inclusions.”

“Being a solo artist is an interesting thing, because you have to learn how to tell your story in a lot of ways,” Sollee said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Lexington, Ky.

“I feel ‘Inclusions’ is the result of looking back on my story, and what I care about. It’s very much about the people, places and things in my life, embodied in music.

“It’s the fiddle tunes I learned from my grandfather, the hip-hop I liked as a kid, the music I heard in China and Tibet. It’s all those sounds from the past, and inclusive of all those styles.”

One moment Sollee might be plucking his cello like a guitar, the next tapping it like a drum and then using a bow in a classical style. It was this diversity that first attracted him to the instrument.

“When I was 9 and attending public school, a teacher walked into the classroom and played all the different instruments for us kids,” Sollee said. “The cello just spoke to me.

“As a third-grader, what I really liked about the cello was that you could make all kinds of different sound effects with it. That storyline has continued in that the cello has always made the sounds I’ve tried to get out of it.”

When Sollee first started playing the cello, it was bigger than he was. Lugging the ponderous instrument around took strength and ingenuity.

“Walking back home from school with the cello was always a trick, because there was the long way and the short way,” said Sollee, who in 2007 was named one of the “Top 10 Unknown Artists of the Year” by National Public Radio.

“The short way happened to involve climbing a 10-foot fence. At a young age, I figured out how to get my cello through certain situations, which seems to have served me well now that I’m doing music tours by bicycle.”

Sollee won’t be pedaling into Charlottesville, but he has conducted three bicycle tours to date and is planning more for the future. And to encourage people to ride their bicycles to the concert, he said, he’s doing his best to ensure safe, secure bicycle parking at the venue.

“If you talk to musicians, you probably have heard them gripe about airports, planes and trains,” Sollee said. “I got tired of griping and not doing anything about it.

“The bicycle presented itself, so I got on it and did it. It was never about being green or being sustainable. It was about trying to get outside the normal pattern of music touring.

“It also allows us to be a little more community-oriented with our tours. Community is very important to me.”

Sollee started carving out a place for himself in the national music community in 2005, when he joined forces with Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck and Casey Driessen to create the Sparrow Quartet. This collaboration generated the 2008 debut album, “Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet.”

A month after that release, Sollee came out with his solo debut album, “Learning to Bend.” Because his music incorporates a variety of styles, it’s difficult to say what it is, other than honest and heartfelt.

“I grew up playing all kinds of music,” Sollee said as he kept an eye on his 3-year-old son, Oliver. “I grew up studying classical, playing fiddle tunes with my grandfather and R&B with my dad.

“All those things came together to make a folksy R&B. With my songs, I’m always trying to tell a story. I usually have one little piece that I’ll build around.

“For example, there’s a song on the new album called ‘Hurting.’ I walked into a room one day after becoming a dad, and my sister, who hadn’t seen me in a year and a half, looked at me and said, ‘Well, the boy is all gone from your face.’ That sentence turned into the song.”

Sollee will be joined onstage at the Southern by fiddle player Phoebe Hunt and percussionist Jordon Ellis.

The last time he played here, it was as a member of the Appalachian Voices.

They were touring to raise awareness of the beauty of Appalachia and the destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining. Sollee said this time it’s just about putting on a fun show, sharing his latest songs and having fun himself.

“When I was in the fifth grade, we were doing an end-of-the-year concert,” Sollee recalled. “I had terrible stage fright as a young kid, and we were supposed to get on stage and sing a song.

“Even though I was in a choir of 20 or more kids, I was still terrified. I remember standing on the top bleacher and seeing kids on roller blades rolling around the gym, parents were smiling and people hula-hooping.

“I was like, ‘Hang on. This is supposed to be fun.’ And it kind of washed over me, and I realized that I loved to sing. So the litmus test for me with music is that it has got to be fun.

“You have to work really hard to learn music and how to play. But when it comes right down to it, the actual experience of sharing music has got to be fun.”

Ben Sollee and friends will be performing Saturday night at the Southern Cafe and Music Hall. Doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 on the day of the show. For tickets and more information visit www.thesoutherncville.com or call 1-800-594-8499.