Undead bluegrass

On a last-minute impulse, prompted by a Facebook link posted by one of my Esteemed Colleagues, my Smaller Half and I went to see Béla Fleck play on Friday night.  The first half of the concert was him playing solo banjo.  The second half was him playing banjo with the songbird of Mali, Oumou Sangaré, and the rest of her band.  Unfortunately the mixing levels weren't so great for the second half, but the first half was spellbinding.  He played several pieces which were built on Ugandan folk songs, a Beatles medley which was much better than you'd expect from that description, several pieces which were almost wilfully dissonant, and a few more traditional bluegrass-style rushes.

After the concert I lined up to talk to him and get him to sign some CDs.  As our turn arrived and we stepped up to greet him, two older folks barged in from left field and started talking to him.  At first I was outraged but then as I listened I became fascinated.  They weren't speaking English, they were speaking the native language of Hungary, which is called Draculan.  They said, "Zhebrov ghubrashnji mirro mirro mirro mirro zhabrajov muahaha haha haaahhh" and flung their red silk capes dramatically around their shoulders while the lightning flashed through the windows and the bats darted around us

Béla listened to them patiently, smiled, and said, "Oh I'm sorry, I'm not Hungarian."

The Hungarians looked surprised and asked him where his name Béla came from.  He explained that he was named after Béla Bartók, the composer.  The Hungarians looked disappointed and moved away.

It made me wonder whether being named after a famous composer was part of what made him become a musician.  I can imagine that it was partly having parents who loved music enough to name him after a composer and partly the constant reminder of having to "explain" your name to people that meant that music became part of his identity.

I wonder how things would have worked out if his parents had told him that he'd been named after Béla Lugosi, the iconic movie representation of Dracula.  Perhaps he would have grown up to become an actor.  Or a wampyre.  I think this idea should be explored further with a randomised trial of nominative determinism.  We should allocate unusual given names to randomly selected pairs of parents and instruct each pair to give a different explanation of who the child was named after, and track the children over time to see if they follow their respective namesakes.

Any volunteers?