March 24, 2020

"Though the theme songs to the film 'Bonnie & Clyde' (1967) and the CBS sitcom 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' both recorded by Flatt and Scruggs, preceded 'Dueling Banjos'..."

"... in exposing wide audiences to bluegrass, neither made it to the pop Top 40. 'Dueling Banjos,' which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 movie 'Deliverance,' fared far better, rising to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart.... As a session player he appeared on Judy Collins’s 'Fifth Album,' contributing guitar to her 1965 version of 'Pack Up Your Sorrows.' He played banjo on John Denver’s 1971 Top 10 pop hit, 'Take Me Home, Country Roads.' His fretwork was heard on albums like Bob Dylan’s 'Blood on the Tracks' (1974), Billy Joel’s 'Piano Man' (1973) and the Talking Heads’ 'Little Creatures' (1985)."

From "Eric Weissberg, ‘Dueling Banjos’ Musician, Dies at 80/His melodic banjo work on a 1973 hit single (heard in the movie 'Deliverance') helped usher bluegrass music into the cultural mainstream" (NYT).

I was going to embed the scene from "Deliverance," but the visual aspect of it is creepy and not what I want right now, as evidenced by my instinct to go to "Take Me Home, Country Roads." The link goes to the studio version. There's a comment there from a week ago: "West Virginia is the last state without Coronavirus and that’s why I listen to this song."

57 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Eric was a casual friend and a member of my long running Tuesday night motorcycle ride and spaghetti dinner group in the Kingston/Woodstock area. That group had quite the cast of strange characters.

Played with him from time to time at the weekly (and also very long running) Woodstock bluegrass jam session.

Good guy. God bless.

rhhardin said...

Even prople who play bluegrass don't like bluegrass. - Imus

stevew said...

The entire movie, Deliverance, had a creepy vibe to it.

True that that was my first exposure to bluegrass. Have really enjoyed it ever since, though I don't listen often.

rhhardin said...

Kate and Anna McGarrigle know what the banjo is for
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vK7jitvJXI

Curious George said...

"I was going to embed the scene from "Deliverance," but the visual aspect of it is creepy"

Wow. You find a mentally challenged person finding joy in music "creepy?" Everyone in that scene was smiling when they were playing.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

West Virginia is the last state without Coronavirus and that’s why I listen to this song.

As those country roads take everybody home they'll bring the coronavirus with them...

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

There is a popular merengue (Latin country) that kind of sounds to me like dueling bangos...

Farolito - https://youtu.be/QSMMSRhftR8?t=165

rwnutjob said...

Written & recorded in 1954 by Arthur Smith of Charlotte, NC who filed a successful lawsuit because it was used in the film without Smith's permission. He was prohibited from declaring the amount, but used to point to his Sport fishing boat as proceeds.

rcocean said...

"Everyone in that scene was smiling when they were playing."

actually some are smiling. Ned Beatty looks on with bemused contempt, Burt Reynolds is indifferent, and the father comes storming in to sternly ask: "Who's picking that banjo?"

But yes everyone else is smiling. Had the movie been made about a trip to say Burma or the Congo with the same plot, you would've heard howls of "Raciss, you dirty raciss". But since it was hillbillies being portrayed as backwards homicidal sodomites , no one cared.

rcocean said...

I always liked it when the Beverly hillbillies Flatt and Scruggs on. Jed (Buddy ebsen) would do a little dance sometimes, but I had no idea he'd been dancer in "real Life".
BTW, the best shows were the ones "Sonny" and "Pearl". The show is hard to find even on DVD these days. Especially the early B&W ones which are the best.

Curious George said...

rcocean said...
"Everyone in that scene was smiling when they were playing."

actually some are smiling. Ned Beatty looks on with bemused contempt, Burt Reynolds is indifferent, and the father comes storming in to sternly ask: "Who's picking that banjo?"


Nope. Only at the start does Ned Beatty look on with bemused contempt. Once they get going he actually is smiling and clapping along. The dad whistles the tune they are playing. Grandpa dances. Bert is smiling too. And the guy playing guitar treats the kid with respect..."I could play all day with that guy!" The kids playing actually brings two groups with very different cultures together. That is what that scene is about. Not creepy.

mockturtle said...

Curious George is absolutely right--it's a beautiful moment in an otherwise hostile and violent experience. Dueling Banjos is one of those memorable movie segments that transcend the decades.

Lurker21 said...

I wanted to go with "Dueling Bongos," but that would have made it a very different movie ...

Jeff Brokaw said...

+1 for “Country Roads”, I love that song.

Another good version — reggae! — is by Toots and the Maytalls: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lQFKMar4x-w

Bitter Clinger said...

I'm usually a lurker here and rarely post (though I read the blog and comments everyday). Can't pass up this opportunity though. In the early 2000s I heard an incredibly sad and beautiful version of "Country Roads" on an indie music Chicago radio station. It was full of longing for home and sounded as if the singer thought he'd never make it back. John Denver's version is rather upbeat. Didn't catch who it was and have never been able to find out. I'd appreciate any suggestions!

Ann Althouse said...

"Wow. You find a mentally challenged person finding joy in music "creepy?" Everyone in that scene was smiling when they were playing."

I'm reading the scene the way you read cinema. Maybe that's not needed anymore going to the movies, but in the old days, we knew how to see the foreboding and uneasiness. It has to do with editing, etc.

I am finding you a little "mentally challenged"... or just a jackass.

Ann Althouse said...

@Bitter Clinger

All I can come up with is this version by Yoko Hanna.

boatbuilder said...

In his wonderful book, "The Survival of The Bark Canoe", John McPhee has a chapter about James Dickey and Deliverance, the gist of which is that Dickey's canoeing experience consisted of floating in his canoe on a two foot deep farm pond, while drinking copious amounts of bourbon; the rest was pure imagination.

Fernandinande said...

"And then one day he was shootin at some food" is the best lyric ever.

Curious George said...

"I'm reading the scene the way you read cinema. Maybe that's not needed anymore going to the movies, but in the old days, we knew how to see the foreboding and uneasiness. It has to do with editing, etc.

I am finding you a little "mentally challenged"... or just a jackass."

I described the scene, and what it meant, the playing actually erased the foreboding and uneasiness between two very different groups. For that brief time they became one. So what a steaming pile. But I'll play along. How is the visual aspect of that scene creepy? Please share your ancient art of seeing what the rest of can't.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


“"I was going to embed the scene from "Deliverance," but the visual aspect of it is creepy"”

That’s a shame. It’s the actual heart of the movie. The distance from their suburban homes to a place where they’re unwelcome and, this gets buried in what follows, threatening strangers.

Ann Althouse said...

"Please share your ancient art of seeing what the rest of can't."

Give your cant a rest.

mockturtle said...

Curious, never forget this axiom: Althouse is never, ever wrong. ;-) Her perception is always spot-on and her logic above scrutiny. After all, it's her blog! [And an excellent blog it is and I am grateful for it].

Ralph L said...

A co-worker in the 80's was a Seldom Scene groupie at the Birchmere in Alexandria. I went once with him. The mandolin was like a dagger in my ear.

Mike Sylwester said...

Watch this version of the song

Bob Boyd said...

So is coronavirus transmissible via hillbilly ass rape in the woods?
Asking for a friend.

Ann Althouse said...

""Dueling Banjos" is a traditional composition by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. The song was composed in 1954[2] by Smith as a banjo instrumental he called "Feudin' Banjos," which contained riffs from Smith recorded in 1955 playing a four-string plectrum banjo and accompanied by five-string bluegrass banjo player Don Reno. The composition's first wide-scale airing was on a 1963 television episode of The Andy Griffith Show called "Briscoe Declares for Aunt Bee," in which it is played by visiting musical family the Darlings (played by The Dillards, a bluegrass group) along with Griffith himself."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dueling_Banjos

Bitter Clinger said...

@ Ann. Thanks for the link. Interesting version but definitely not the one I heard. Anyway, a reply from the hostess! Makes my day. Am I really a fanboy of a slightly lefty, retired law professor?

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

"Briscoe Declares for Aunt Bee"

I've got 4 Dillards/Griffith songs, I'll have to find that one.

Turns out Deliverance swiped the song without permission and Steve Mandell played the banjo, not the FLK.

Watch this version of the song

Yeah, those kids are amazing - go to about 1:20 when the song really starts.

Bitter Clinger said...

This version gets a little bit of the feel just by slowing the tempo down 10%. Strip away all the extra, just a singer and a guitar, with the slow tempo and the singer sounding like he'll never make it home and that's the sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxKHJ8H5Y7k

Or this one even better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrz5yhh-bos

Michael The Magnificent said...

Andy Griffith show music playlist

gspencer said...

A lot of wisdom in country music of years past. Not the stylized, Hollywood version/s of today. Think more Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn.

Skeptical Voter said...

Way to go Ms. Althouse--talkin' a little smack at your "mentally challenged" critic.

Looks like you are ready, figuratively speaking, for a little three on three shirts and skins hoops down at the YMCA.


At least on the vocal side of things you got game.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Norah Jones | Patience

Michael The Magnificent said...

Neil Diamond “Hands.. washing hands”

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Eric Weissberg was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 16, 1939.

As someone descended from a long line of residents of Appalachia; I hereby pronounce a curse on anyone that ever uses the phrase 'cultural appropriation' ever again.

tcrosse said...

Back in the 1960's Weissberg did a bit of work with fellow Badger Marshall Brickman.

Yancey Ward said...

According to the Wiki entry, the record spent 4 weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, all four of them behind #1 "Killing Me Softly With His Song" by Roberta Flack which is one of my favorite songs.

Yancey Ward said...

Bitter Clinger,

You might try Googling "Country Roads minor key version" and go through all the entries.

Rick.T. said...

If you want to see a couple of virtuoso musicians play it, watch the video of Carl Jackson - at 19! -on banjo and Glenn Campbell on guitar.

D. B. Light said...

They call W. Va. "almost Heaven" because it is almost Pennsylvania.

Bitter Clinger said...

@ Yancey: Thanks. Some of those are really good

Curious George said...

"Rick.T. said...
If you want to see a couple of virtuoso musicians play it, watch the video of Carl Jackson - at 19! -on banjo and Glenn Campbell on guitar."

That version, and the Sleepy Man version, is not like the original. In those it seems a contest. The original, despite the name, isn't. The original has the banjo miming the guitar, and then playing with each other, rather than against each other. Glen playing with his daughter also has that feeling, and is quite sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ynhCAZ8KIo

Curious George said...

My uncle, born and raised in WV, said it was the largest state in America, if you flattened it out.

Gordon Scott said...

Ronny Cox is the guy playing the guitar in the Deliverance scene. He went to school with my dad. He said, after the song became a hit, that he wished he had played on the studio recording. He didn't because of some minor reason. It cost him a lot of money, and he was perfectly capable of playing it, as he played it over and over during the filming.

There is a scene later in the movie where the 3 surviving canoeists come upon his corpse hanging from a log in the river. His left arm is out of socket, laying along his shoulder, the forearm hanging down on his right side. It's jarring. My dad pointed out that Ronny could do that with either arm whenever he wanted, and did it sometimes to scare the girls.

Howard said...

My in-laws hosted Ronnie Cox for a house concert a few years ago. They said he was a great musician and a prince of a man.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Songs From Home Episode 1: Live From My Kitchen

Michael The Magnificent said...

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Songs From Home Episode 2: Live From My Kitchen Again

Earnest Prole said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Earnest Prole said...

I take it this New York Times reporter is another bright young thing newly minted by an Ivy League school. The Beverly Hillbillies was the top television show of 1962 with a rating of 36.0 (by way of comparison, last year's highest-rated television show had a rating of 10.6). "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" was 44 on Billboard’s list of top 100 singles that year. In other words, the show's Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs bluegrass theme song was ubiquitous in America in 1962 . . . and 1963, and 1964, and on through the nine years the show was on the air.

Curious George said...

"mockturtle said...
Curious, never forget this axiom: Althouse is never, ever wrong. ;-) Her perception is always spot-on and her logic above scrutiny. After all, it's her blog! [And an excellent blog it is and I am grateful for it]."

Of course, especially lately. The facct that she can't defend her position is telling. She really doesn't understand the song in the movie, and reposnds with some bullshit work salad instead. When confronted with it, she folds as you described. My blog, fuck you. I agree, great blog, but she can post great shit, but is too intellectually weak to support any position she has. Probably a good choice to "teach" the law to students, and not practice it against peers. Those who can't and all that.

Alu Toloa said...

If you want to hear a killer version of "Country Roads", check out Toots and Maytals...

Josephbleau said...

Come listen to my story bout a man named Abdul
the poor Bedouin couldn't keep his family full
then one day he was shooting at a jew, and up from the ground con=me a bubblin crude, oil that is, middle east light crude.

The first thing you know Abdul is a Billionaire! THE BEL ARABS!

SNL from long ago.

Michael The Magnificent said...

John Fogerty Performs 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain' and Other CCR Hits | In My Room

Michael The Magnificent said...

A Southern Gospel Revival - Ben Hester - In The Sweet By And By

Tina Trent said...

In another life, I met Billy Redden in a pool hall called Sundance in Clayton, Georgia. He isn't mentally disabled. Burt Reynolds is not well-liked up there.