Comedian Steve Martin was born on this day in 1945. Back in the 1970s when he mostly did stand-up, Martin often used props, such as an arrow through the head or a banjo that most of the time just hung from his neck. Or when he did play the instrument, it was just more comic shtick, as when he couldn't even get through the first line of Stephen Foster's "The Old Folks at Home" ("Way down upon the Swanee River..." as, say, Bing Crosby sang it) because he played the wrong melody ("Way down upon the Swan...")
But none of this means Martin couldn't play the banjo, and play it well, if he wanted to. In fact, he's a lifelong aficionado of the instrument, and about ten years ago, finally decided to let everyone know this, putting out a few albums, and playing seriously in front of an audience (albeit with a little comic schmoozing between numbers.) In the following clip, Martin explains why he likes the banjo so much:
Even though you can play anything on it, maybe even Mozart for all I know, the type of music one probably most associates with the banjo these days is bluegrass. And without a doubt, the most recognizable bluegrass composition (thanks to it being the background music of Bonnie and Clyde as well as numerous 1970s rural car chase movies) is "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". In this next clip from 2011, Steve Martin and several others (including James Taylor, that's him in his trademark cap) rehearse Flatt's and Scruggs' famous instrumental for an upcoming celebration of Carnegie Hall's 120th anniversary:
Pretty god, huh? And that's just the rehearsal!
I guess it depends if you spend more time at Carnegie Hall or watching Nick at Nite.
Anyway, it's time to bid Steve Martin adieu:
I wonder if Tommy Newsom ever played bluegrass.
