(bright music) (gentle music) - Coming home is always more special, especially when you've been away for a while.

I get to be a hometown hero, and that's not what I'm in it for, but I'm gonna use it for everything I got, because I want you to succeed.

I want you to know that you're worthy.

You're enough, you can achieve your dreams and I'm proof.

(audience cheering) I'm from Newport News, and I'm the youngest of five brothers.

Music has played a big part in my life, probably before I was born, 'cause my brothers were already playing, and they needed a bass player.

My earliest memory of playing, was right around two-years-old.

And because I was literally learning to speak music at the same time as I was learning to speak English, music became very natural.

I was on stage by kindergarten, if not before, and we're opening for War, and Curtis Mayfield, The Temptations.

We didn't know any better.

It's just what it was.

And my older brothers, who are superheroes to me, they're treating me like an equal, and I'm the baby brother, but no one's beating me up.

Instead, they're holding me up, giving me all the credit.

(gentle music) We did a lot of gigs, and we caught the attention of a lot of different people.

A guy named Kashif brought us brothers in to Arista Records, big record company.

The record deal didn't go so well, and it was the cause of the five of us brothers not playing together.

And all we know is music.

So we find out about Busch Gardens, and my life has never been the same.

- Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the Canadian Palladium.

At this time, would you please put your hands together, and welcome Busch Garden's own Good Time Country.

- They announced, "Busch Gardens, welcome to the Good Time Country Show."

And then four black guys walk out, cowboy hat.

And it's like... that quiet.

But when the music started, oh my goodness, it was great.

(bright music) At the time, I was too young to work in the live entertainment department, but they were about to open in a couple of weeks or so, and they needed a bluegrass fiddle player.

And then one of my brothers says, "Well, I got another brother, who could probably play fiddle."

I never played fiddle in my life.

So I researched and found three of the top fiddle songs, and I went in and I won the audition.

(bright music) For us, music is music, a string is a string.

We could make a sound outta it.

We had a lot of people tell us back then, "Man, y'all need to move to Nashville."

And at the time we were like, "Man, I ain't going to Nashville."

(bright music) Never say never.

So all of us moved to Nashville.

(bright music) (audience cheering) In '87, my friend introduced me to Bela Fleck, and we just hit it off.

(bright music) Bela asked me to be a part of a television show called the "Lonesome Pine Specials."

(bright music) They were gonna give Bela a full, hour long special to play his music.

He said, "I just need a drummer."

And I said, "Oh, well you gotta check out my brother."

(bright music) Bela told me "I met this guy named Howard Levy."

Whoa, I don't know if I've ever met a musician like this guy.

He can play anything.

(bright music) It was definitely Bela Fleck and the Flecktones that put me on the global map.

And I thank Bela for that, because Bela understood that the band would be better if he allowed every musician to have freedom.

"Bass Player" magazine was just hitting the scene.

So I wound up in "Bass Player" magazine a lot.

(bright music) We did "The Tonight Show," five times.

- Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

(audience cheering) (bright music) - Arsenio Hall is a big bass fanatic.

So we get on Arsenio Hall, we do this song called "Sinister Minister," which is a bass feature.

(bright music) Spinning the bass around my neck, Arsenio Hall's going crazy.

(audience cheering) And so things worked out for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

- Bela Fleck.

- [Speaker] Three and a two... - [Victor] Mm-hmm.

- [Speaker] These two would make a four bar.

- [Victor] Exactly, exactly.

Mm-hmm.

- [Speaker] So then it would be out here.

(both imitating instruments) - Yeah.

- That's nice.

- I think so.

- The backside of it's a little longer with a four bar.

- Mm-hmm.

It's whatever helps solidify that rhythm.

- [Speaker] Right.

- I'm improvising.

I'm rarely reading.

But if I put my head here, I start playing this rather than playing this.

- [Speaker] It's so flavorful.

That whole section, it's really neat.

- Thank you very much.

(bright music) I have a lot of respect for a symphony.

As a child, I played in orchestras, but in being asked to write a piece, I have an idea that they want classical, but they want something different.

The main thing that I wanted to do, was not leave me as I was writing.

The instrumentation is going to make it different enough.

(bright music) To hear people playing something that I wrote, wow, amazing.

(bright music) Right now it's my first time sitting out, and listening to it.

- [Speaker] Oh yeah?

- Yeah, and I can't listen 'cause I'm... - [Speaker] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- I've got a bad case of focal dystonia.

I hate to even say it, but my hands curl up trying to play.

So it's a huge struggle for me to play simple things.

I didn't write anything hard for me in this piece just because of that, but it's gotten a little worse.

So I'm gonna be scratching and clawing at this whole thing.

You all make me sound good.

- [Speaker] Oh, yeah.

(Victor laughs) - [Victor] Thank you.

- [Speaker] Awesome.

Thanks to you.

(bright music) - Over 20 years ago, I just noticed that my hands were slowing down.

Didn't know why.

I just felt "I need to practice."

So I start working on stuff, running scales, all the stuff people say, warming up, and all this stuff that I never did.

It's not getting better.

It's getting worse.

Now it is so difficult for me to play.

For one, it's taken over my brain, and I'm having to do all the things I tell students, how to relax, breathe.

"Don't think about that, think about this."

Mm.

(bright music) There's a saying, I heard, "We teach what we most need to learn."

So all that stuff I say, I'm working on it.

(bright music) Right now, I'm playing this concerto that I wrote, that I can barely play.

(bright music) Fortunately, I have a symphony around me, that I can hide behind.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) I wrote a book called "The Music Lesson."

At the beginning of each chapter of the book is a measure of music.

So if you read all the chapters, put the music together, you get a song called "The Lesson."

And then when I thought about writing a concerto, I wanted to really flesh it out with real instruments.

(dramatic music) If anyone knows that song, you'll hear bits and pieces broken up, and spread out between movements, as well as spread out between the instruments.

(dramatic music) I wanted a bass that I could bow and nobody made one.

So I asked Vinny Fodera if he could get a bow base made, and he said, "I think I can."

And the easiest way to think of it is a cello on its side.

(dramatic music) It's fun for me to get to play with, because it's a one of a kind.

(dramatic music) I think of a concerto as a musician out front, virtuoso, playing a lot of stuff and the orchestra's back behind.

And I like that idea, but I didn't really want to do just that.

I want the audience to see what a bass does, but also see what a bass can do.

So there are times in the symphony, where I'm supporting the oboe, supporting the violins, and doing what the bass does with the bass section.

But then I'll step out front, and let you see that the bass can play chords, the bass can play melodies, the bass can solo.

(dramatic music) So that is an education for all of us.

(dramatic music) As I heard a friend of mine say, "Playing music is like trying to count to infinity.

It doesn't matter how far you count, you don't get any closer to the end, but you do get further from the beginning."

(dramatic music) So yeah, I've come a long way with music and I'm satisfied.

It doesn't mean I feel like I'm done.

There's still things I want to do.

My focus has changed to what I can help others do.

If I can inspire you to do anything, it's to be the best version of you possible.

(dramatic music) If you continue to pursue your dreams, and just don't quit, you will live them.

It may take longer than you took, it may be harder than you think, but if it was easy, it wouldn't mean as much.

(dramatic music) Music is about sharing it, and giving it to other people, living our dream with us.

(audience cheering) And that's a beautiful, a beautiful life.

(audience cheering) (bright music) (bright music continues)