“Whitewater” is a Béla Fleck composition and the opening track of Drive (Rounder, 1988), his landmark solo album recorded toward the end of his New Grass Revival tenure and before the formation of the Flecktones. The personnel makes the record a summit meeting of late-1980s progressive acoustic playing: Tony Rice on guitar, Sam Bush on mandolin, Stuart Duncan and Mark O’Connor on fiddle, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Mark Schatz on bass. The combination of those six musicians, assembled by Fleck at a specific historical moment when they were each at the peak of their individual powers, gives the album a concentrated intensity that has made it one of the most studied recordings in the progressive bluegrass tradition.
The A-major reel has the characteristic forward momentum of Fleck’s banjo writing in this period: enough melodic content to support real improvisation, enough rhythmic clarity to drive a full band, and a structure compact enough to be useful in a jam setting. The title evokes exactly the energy the tune generates — fast, organized, slightly turbulent, requiring constant attention to stay clean through the transitions.
The album was remastered on SACD by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2005, recognition of its canonical status. In the context of the instrumental bluegrass and newgrass tradition, Drive as a whole and “Whitewater” in particular represent the high-water mark of a specific moment — acoustic musicians at the peak of their abilities recorded together before their careers scattered in different directions.