"Dueling Banjos" | ||||
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Single by Eric Weissberg | ||||
from the album Dueling Banjos | ||||
B-side | "End of a Dream" | |||
Released | December 1972 | |||
Recorded | 1972 | |||
Genre | Bluegrass [1] | |||
Length | 2:10 | |||
Label | Warner Bros. | |||
Songwriter(s) | Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, Don Reno, arranged by Eric Weissberg, Steve Mandell | |||
Producer(s) | Joe Boyd | |||
Eric Weissberg singles chronology | ||||
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"Dueling Banjos" is a bluegrass composition by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. The song was composed in 1954 [2] by Smith as a banjo instrumental he called "Feudin' Banjos"; it 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 (portrayed by The Dillards, a bluegrass group), along with Griffith himself.
The song was made famous by the 1972 film Deliverance , which also led to a successful lawsuit by the song's composer, as it was used in the film without Smith's permission. The film version was arranged and recorded by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, but only credited to Weissberg on a single subsequently issued in December 1972. It went to second place for four weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973, behind Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly with His Song"; it topped the adult contemporary chart for two weeks. [3] It reached No. 1 for one week on both the Cashbox and Record World charts. It reached No. 5 on Hot Country Singles. It was nominated for the 30th Golden Globe Awards as Best Original Song. [4] The success of the single led to an album of the same name released in January 1973.
At the 16th Annual Grammy Awards in 1974, the song won the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance for Steve Mandell & Eric Weissberg. [5]
This instrumental quotes the first 12 notes of "Yankee Doodle".
In Deliverance , a scene depicts Billy Redden playing it opposite Ronny Cox, who joins him on guitar and ends up having a guitar vs. banjo duel. Redden plays Lonnie, a mentally challenged, inbred but extremely gifted banjo player. Redden could not play the banjo and the director thought his hand movements looked unconvincing. A local musician, Mike Addis, was brought in to depict the movement of the boy's left hand. Addis hid behind Redden, with his left arm in Redden's shirt sleeve. Careful camera angles kept Addis out of frame and completed the illusion. The music itself was dubbed from the recording made by Weissberg and Mandell and was not played by the actors. [6] Two young musicians, Ron Brentano and Mike Russo, had originally been signed to play their adaptation for the film, but instead it was performed by Weissberg and Mandell. [7]
"Dueling Banjos" was arranged and performed for the film by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell and was included on its soundtrack. [8] [9] When Arthur "Boogie" Smith was not acknowledged as the composer by the filmmakers, he sued and eventually won, receiving songwriting credit as well as royalties. [10]
The song was used in the theatrical trailer of What About Bob? and briefly used in a TV commercial for the 2003 Saturn Vue. [11]
Chart (1973) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canadian RPM Top Singles | 2 |
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks | 1 |
Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 9 |
South Africa (Springbok) [12] | 15 |
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 2 |
U.S. Billboard Easy Listening | 1 |
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles [13] | 5 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States (RIAA) [14] | Gold | 1,000,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
Comedian Martin Mull spoofed the song with an instrumental "Dueling Tubas" on his 1973 comedy album Martin Mull & His Fabulous Furniture In Your Living Room. [15]
The Randy Stonehill song "Big Ideas (In a Shrinking World)," from the album Equator , contains a brief joke about "Dueling Bagpipes."
British punk band Toy Dolls adapted the song as "Drooling Banjos" on their 1993 album Absurd-Ditties .
In "Dueling Pizzas", a production video from Season 7, Episode 19 of America's Funniest Home Videos , which first aired in 1996, two people pretend to play the song on cheese pulls from pizza slices. The video won the second place prize, $3,000. [16]
Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film directed and produced by John Boorman from a screenplay by James Dickey, who adapted it from his own 1970 novel of the same name. It follows four businessmen from Atlanta who venture into the remote northern Georgia wilderness to see the Cahulawassee River before it is dammed, only to find themselves in danger from the area's inhabitants and nature. It stars Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox, with the latter two making their feature film debuts.
Stephen Glenn Martin is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician. Known for his work in comedy films, television, and recording, he has received many accolades, including five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and an Honorary Academy Award, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards. He also received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2005, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007, and an AFI Life Achievement Award in 2015. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. The Guardian named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. An acclaimed virtuoso, he is an innovative and technically proficient pioneer and ambassador of the banjo, playing music from bluegrass, jazz, classical, rock and various world music genres. He is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck has won 17 Grammy Awards and been nominated 39 times.
The 16th Annual Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1974, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognised accomplishments by musicians from the year 1973.
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Clarence White was an American bluegrass and country guitarist and singer. He is best known as a member of the bluegrass ensemble the Kentucky Colonels and the rock band the Byrds, as well as for being a pioneer of the musical genre of country rock during the late 1960s. White also worked extensively as a session musician, appearing on recordings by the Everly Brothers, Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone, the Monkees, Randy Newman, Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, and Jackson Browne among others.
Arthur Smith was an American musician, composer, and record producer, as well as a radio and TV host. He produced radio and TV shows; The Arthur Smith Show was the first nationally syndicated country music show on television. After moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, Smith developed and ran the first commercial recording studio in the Southeast.
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Donald Wesley Reno was an American bluegrass and country musician, best known as a pioneering banjo and guitar player who partnered with Red Smiley, and later with guitarist Bill Harrell.
Eric Weissberg was an American singer, banjo player, and multi-instrumentalist, whose most commercially successful recording was his banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos", featured as the theme of the film Deliverance (1972) and released as a single that reached number 2 in the United States and Canada in 1973.
True Stories and Other Dreams is the ninth studio album by American singer and songwriter Judy Collins, released by Elektra Records in 1973. It peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.
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The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo is a 2009 album by Steve Martin, featuring Dolly Parton, Vince Gill, Earl Scruggs, Tim O'Brien, Tony Trischka and Mary Black. It contains 15 songs and is the first album focusing on Martin as a musician. Martin's 1977 comedy recording Let's Get Small, however, did feature him briefly playing the banjo during some of the comedy bits, and The Steve Martin Brothers devotes one side to banjo playing, including earlier renditions of some of the music presented here. It was first released on January 27, 2009, as an Amazon.com exclusive and then released to retail stores everywhere on May 19, 2009. On January 31, 2010, the album won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album at the 52nd Grammy Awards.
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