Jokes and Films Are Fun, but He Loves His Banjo is a New York Times article by Dave Itzkoff about Steve Martin's new bluegrass album called "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo".
From the article:
Among country and bluegrass musicians, Mr. Martin is regarded as a master of a difficult five-fingered playing style known as clawhammer or frailing, in which the instrument’s strings are pushed down by fingernails, rather than pulled up with picks.
“I know I can’t play it,” said Mr. Scruggs, for whom the traditional three-fingered Scruggs style is named. “So it’s a challenge for me.”
Martin is widely quoted as saying, "You just can't sing a depressing song when you're playing the banjo." You can find a young Martin jamming with the Muppets here.
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7 comments:
Did you see Saturday Night Live this past weekend? (I'm the SNL Geek who never misses it and the one person in the room who finds something funny about it when everyone else thinks it's a bad season AND I have a SNL quote for pretty much every circumstance in life. Seriously.)
Anyway, Steve Martin was the host AND he jammed on his banjo towards the end of the show -- he played a song (with lyrics) with his band about a boy....er, I'm trying to remember. It was about a child. Sorry. It was late.
Jules: I didn't! I never see SNL anymore except for as clips on the internet. I'll look for Martin on the website. I had no idea you were a SNL geek. My favorite SNL moments involve Paul Simon's dead-pan acting and the Church Lady breaking out into her superior dance.
I wish I could find the skit with the DeMarco Brothers dancing to the Paul Simon tunes -- they were acting out/dancing to every moment in a literal manner at a dancer audition, though I can't remember which song. SOOOO funny. I tried to find that online recently, but all I can find was the DeMarco Brothers and Jon Bon Jovi.
I like SNL, too - at least the political parts. I have always really loved Steve martin in an illogical way since most of what I have seen him in is rather slapstick and I usually don't like slapstick.
All Things Considered ran a great interview with Martin today about his new CD. It was lovely.
Steve Martin was on The Colbert Report last night, and he gave a banjo demonstration. Very impressive. He's a multi-talented guy. Almost convinced me to go and see Pink Panther 2, except all the trailers and commercials look really stupid.
Steve Martin also frequently interrupted Colbert during the show, prompting him to rage at him like Christian Bale did recently.
Love this. But my all time favorite 5-string banjo master will always be Pete Seeger :)
I never knew Steve Martin played the banjo!
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