Musician Eric Weissberg, of ‘Dueling Banjos’ fame, dies
Eric Weissberg, a gifted multi-instrumentalist whose melodic banjo work on the 1973 hit single “Dueling Banjos” helped bring bluegrass music into the cultural mainstream, died Sunday in a nursing home near Detroit. He was 80.
Juliet Weissberg, his wife of 34 years, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.
Though the theme songs to the film “Bonnie & Clyde” (1967) and the CBS sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” both recorded by Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, preceded “Dueling Banjos” in exposing wide audiences to bluegrass, neither made it to the pop Top 40. “Dueling Banjos,” which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 movie “Deliverance,” fared far better, rising to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart.
The soundtrack to “Deliverance” was also certified gold, for sales of more than 500,000 copies.
But Weissberg — who also played fiddle, mandolin and guitar — produced much more than a one-hit wonder. More than a decade before “Dueling Banjos,” he had distinguished himself as a member of two popular folk groups, the Greenbriar Boys and the Tarriers, and as an in-demand session musician in New York.
As a session player he appeared on Judy Collins’ “Fifth Album,” contributing guitar to her 1965 version of “Pack Up Your Sorrows.” He played banjo on John Denver’s 1971 Top 10 pop hit, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” His fretwork was heard on albums like Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” (1974), Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” (1973) and the Talking Heads’ “Little Creatures” (1985). He collaborated with jazz musicians like Bob James and Herbie Mann as well.
“Dueling Banjos” did not, as the song’s title suggests, involve two banjoists pitting their skills against each other. Instead it showcased Weissberg’s threefinger Earl Scruggs-style banjo in a sprightly calland-response — more of a dance than a fight — with the flat-picked acoustic guitar of his collaborator, Steve Mandell.
The song was originally recorded in 1955 as “Feudin’ Banjos” in a version that featured the song’s composer, Arthur Smith (known for “Guitar Boogie”), and Don Reno, both of them on banjo.
When it appeared on the soundtrack for “Deliverance,” a movie based on the James Dickey novel of the same name, it was mistakenly copyrighted to Weissberg.
A lawsuit was settled in Smith’s favor. Weissberg always maintained that Warner Bros. had credited him as the song’s composer without his knowledge or consent.
An inspiration to banjoists who followed in his wake, especially those of a progressive bent like Tony Trischka and Béla Fleck, Weissberg contributed to a trio of influential early banjo albums: “American Banjo Scruggs Style” (Folkways, 1957), “Folk Banjo Styles” (Elektra, 1961) and “New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass” (Elektra, 1963).
“Here were some early seedings of progressive banjo playing scattered in my fertile mind,” Trischka said of the “New Dimensions” album in a 2006 edition of Banjo Newsletter. “These tunes set a whole new standard for what could be done with the banjo. All that, plus a generous dose of the early melodic style.”
All but two tracks from “New Dimensions,” recorded with guitarist Clarence White and banjoist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Marshall Brickman, were reissued on the soundtrack to “Deliverance.” The Beastie Boys later sampled a snippet of one of the album’s tracks, “Shuckin’ the Corn,” on “5-Piece Chicken Dinner,” from their 1989 touchstone, “Paul’s Boutique.”