[Dixielandjazz] For the banjo players

[Stephen G Barbone]

February 2, 2009 - NY TIMES - By Dave Itzkoff
Jokes and Films Are Fun, but He Loves His Banjo

It wasn’t easy to silence the set of “Saturday Night Live,” which at  
Friday evening’s rehearsal was a cacophony of banging hammers, buzzing  
saws and chattering crew members, but Steve Martin did it with a banjo.

On the main stage of NBC’s Studio 8H in Manhattan, wielding a Gibson  
Florentine from the 1920s and accompanied by a quintet of bluegrass  
musicians, Mr. Martin was plucking, strumming and, yes, singing his  
way through an original song called “Late for School,” about a young  
delinquent racing to beat the tardy bell. The hoedown brought the room  
to a halt, and when it was over even the surliest stagehands couldn’t  
help but stand and applaud.

In his mercurial career Mr. Martin, 63, has gone from manic, rabbit- 
eared stand-up comedian to introspective memoirist. He has made movies  
for Carl Reiner (“The Jerk”) and David Mamet (“The Spanish Prisoner”)  
alike. Through his many incarnations a banjo has never been far from  
his reach, whether the instrument was an integral part of his act or a  
tool to help him unwind in private.

Now Mr. Martin is once again in the musician’s role as he releases an  
album called “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo.” The  
record (which is being sold exclusively as a download on Amazon.com,  
until April 26, when it also will be released by 40 Productions as a  
CD) is a token of his affection for bluegrass, with appearances by  
performers like Vince Gill and Dolly Parton. But it is also an  
opportunity to show off one of his less celebrated, least commercial  
skills, and to reimmerse himself in a musical genre he never fully  
gave up.

“It’s a secret world,” he said of bluegrass in an interview at his  
“SNL” dressing room, where his banjo sat beside him in its case like a  
baby in a bassinet. “It’s a big world, but it’s thin. And it doesn’t  
make the news, which is actually quite fantastic.”

Mr. Martin, who came of age in Orange County, Calif., in the early  
1960s, recalled the era as one when folk groups like the Kingston Trio  
and bluegrass bands like the Dillards were at their peak. Having  
decided to become an entertainer, Mr. Martin seized on the banjo as  
one more element he could add to an all-purpose act.

“I needed everything,” said Mr. Martin, who in person is more reserved  
than his on-screen characters but excitable once he starts talking  
about music. “I did jokes, I did juggling, did magic. I put the banjo  
in just really to fill time, so I’d have enough to call it a show.”

But as Mr. Martin learned the instrument, friends could see a fussy  
perfectionism emerging.

“I had a proficiency for picking notes off records,” said John McEuen,  
a childhood pal who went on to join the country-rock group the Nitty  
Gritty Dirt Band. “I’d show Steve what I learned. About halfway  
through he’d go, ‘That’s enough,’ and take off on his own.”

As his stand-up career blossomed, Mr. Martin wrote and performed  
satirical banjo tunes (“Grandmother’s Song,” “Ramblin’ Guy”) as well  
as original bluegrass songs that drew unintended laughs. And as he  
became known in other capacities — playwright, art collector, Academy  
Awards host — his musical skills were mostly forgotten by the public.  
(“Not that they’re supposed to remember,” Mr. Martin said.)

But starting in 2001 he began a banjo resurgence. That year Earl  
Scruggs, the bluegrass pioneer, asked him to play on a recording of  
the song “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” for the album “Earl Scruggs and  
Friends.” In 2007 he contributed an original composition, “The Crow,”  
to the Tony Trischka album “Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular.”

That track, on which Mr. Martin and Mr. Trischka performed together,  
became Mr. Martin’s first hit single since 1978’s “King Tut.” “It made  
the bluegrass charts,” Mr. Martin said. “I don’t know how much that  
means. It might have sold two.”

Newly invigorated, Mr. Martin recorded more of his original banjo  
songs on an iPod, and gave them to Mr. McEuen, who added fuller  
arrangements by computer. Using those tracks as their blueprints, the  
two produced much of the “Crow” album in a frenzied week at a studio  
in Englewood, N.J., with excursions to Nashville to record with Ms.  
Parton and Mr. Gill (who sing a duet called “Pretty Flowers”), and to  
Dublin to record with the folk singer Mary Black.

If Mr. Martin’s collaborators believed his comedy background meant he  
didn’t take music seriously, those notions were quickly dispelled.  
“The first image I have of him is the arrow through his head, playing  
the banjo,” Mr. Gill said. “Everybody does. But when you hear him  
play, you know he’s not goofing around.”

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.”

Mr. Martin also owns a collection of vintage banjos — not counting  
those that he experiments with or takes on vacation — including two  
Depression-era Gibson Florentines and a Gibson Granada, which he  
displays in the living room of his California home.

“It’s just a signal, if musicians come over, we can play,” Mr. Martin  
said. With mock decorum, he added, “It’s a signal for guests to say,  
‘Steve, would you mind playing something?’ ”

They are also a reminder of Mr. Martin’s stature in the bluegrass  
pantheon. A few years ago Mr. Scruggs’s wife, Louise, mentioned that  
the Gibson instruments he and her husband owned were worth $200,000  
each. “I go, ‘My God, I’ve got three of them!’ ” Mr. Martin said.  
Panicked, he contemplated insuring the banjos and became fearful of  
leaving them unattended in his house.

Then Mr. Martin phoned George Gruhn, an appraiser and dealer of  
vintage instruments in Nashville. As Mr. Martin recalled, “I said,  
‘George, I hear these Florentines are worth some money.’ He said, ‘Oh,  
yeah.’ ” Indeed, the banjos owned by Mr. Scruggs were nearly priceless.

Mr. Martin gingerly inquired about his own instruments. “With your  
name attached?” he was told. “Eight thousand dollars.”

With chagrin Mr. Martin added, “And he was right.”