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Eric Weissberg And Steve Mandel - Dueling Banjos (1972)
Eric Weissberg And Steve Mandel - Dueling Banjos (1972)
"Dueling Banjos" is an instrumental composition that was made famous in a scene from the 1972 movie Deliverance. The scene depicts Billy Redden playing the piece opposite actor Ronny Cox on guitar. Redden plays "Lonnie" a mentally retarded, inbred, extremely gifted banjo player. The piece was arranged and performed for the movie by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell and was on the movie's soundtrack album. The piece was originally composed by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith and Don Reno as Feuding Banjos in 1955. References in popular culture The composition is a mainstay of the band Hayseed Dixie. It is on their fifth album, A Hot Piece of Grass, and is performed as the closing song at the majority of their live performance. The band's main banjo player is Don Wayne Reno, son of one of the work's co-composers Don Reno. In The King of Queens 2001 episode "Whine Country", it is used when Arthur and Spence are camped in a forest. Two people are watching them, and one observes that Spence has 'a pretty mouth'. In the 2007 series finale "China Syndrome", Arthur Spooner wants the harpist at his wedding ceremony to play the piece. In The Simpsons episode "Boy Scoutz N' The Hood", where Bart becomes a Junior Camper after drinking a squishy-induced sugar high beverage from Apu, they reference Deliverance ("Dueling Banjos" playing while a shadowy figure giggles and watches the raft not carrying Bart, Homer, Rod and Ned Flanders on it while it floats downstream). In the Irish sitcom Father Ted episode "Good Luck, Father Ted", two of Craggy Island's locals parody the "Dueling Banjos" sequence from the movie Deliverance. In the Family Guy episode "The Perfect Castaway", Peter Griffin engages Michael Moore in a flatulence contest in the style of "Dueling Banjos". "Dueling Xylophones" by the comedian Bill Bailey "Dueling Tubas" by Martin Mull "Dueling Brandos" performed by John Belushi and Peter Boyle on Saturday Night Live. In the computer game The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush Threepwood challenges a pirate barber into a banjo duel at Plunder Island. Robin Williams does a short called "Dueling Planets" on his Reality, What a Concept album. A skit called "Dueling Carsons/Foxworthys" is used on ESPN Classic's Cheap Seats. Radio-host Ed Schultz uses "Dueling Banjos" as part of a recording involving Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell over Iraq. In Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, Babs and Buster Bunny meet a small colony of country opossum. Buster has a banjo duel with one of them using his tongue, while the opossum's family tries to eat Babs. In the Married with Children episode "The Camping Show", Al Bundy and Steve Rhoades are replaying the banjo scene ("Dueling Banjos") of that film, in which Ed O'Neill was incorrectly rumored to have had a small cameo. In the opening scene of the Home Improvement episode "Back In The Saddle Shoes Again", Tim and Al have a contest on Tool Time to determine whose drywall banjo has the better compound in it. As "Dueling Banjos" plays in the background, they each start to use their banjos on a sheet of drywall (at first alternating between the parts, but later turning into a frenzy before fading to the opening credits). In The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. 2 part episode "High Treason", Pete Hutter and Sheriff Aaron Viva pass the time in their cell acting out the famous "Dueling Banjos" song from the film Deliverance. In the Futurama episode "The Deep South", the gang finds the old city of Atlanta. After the Colonel introduces them, Bender sings the first line of the tune. In the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "Harvey's Civvy", Judge Mentok the Mindtaker and newfound rival Shado the Brain Thief begin an impromptu challenge of mind powers to a tune similar to "Dueling Banjos", before retiring to a bar in the middle of a trial. In the The Beverly Hillbillies film, the extended members of the Clampett family play "Dueling Banjos" in an airplane. In the NCIS episode "Suspicion", Tony and McGee sing the opening part of "Dueling Banjos" to explain to Ziva what Boondocks are. In the anime Cowboy Bebop there is a in-show program called Big Shot that the bounty hunters of the Bebop use as reference to catch all their bounties. In the start of the opening tune of Big Shot, the tune sounds very familiar to the ending banjo segment of "Dueling Banjos". And if one has a close enough listening ear, it seems as if the entire banjo part of the song is playing in the background.
YouTube | June 4, 2008
