About Béla Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck ( BAY-lə; born July 10, 1958) is an American virtuoso banjo player whose work blends bluegrass with other genres, including jazz, and who is known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck has won 18 Grammy Awards and been nominated 41 times. In 2020, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame as a member of New Grass Revival. == Early life, family and education == Béla Anton Leoš Fleck was born into a Jewish family in New York City. He was named after three classical composers his father admired: the Hungarian Béla Bartók, the Austrian Anton Webern, and the Czech Leoš Janáček. The father left the family when Béla was a year old. They did not meet again until Béla was in his 40s. Bela's mother remarried; her new husband played cello. Fleck was drawn to the banjo at a young age when he heard Earl Scruggs play the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies television show, and when he heard "Dueling Banjos" by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell on the radio. At the age of 15, while visiting his grandparents in New Jersey, he received his first banjo, which his grandfather had found at a garage sale.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.