Dueling Banjos

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“Dueling Banjos”
Single by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel
B-side "Reuben's Train"
Released 1973
Format 7" 45rpm
Recorded 1972
Genre Bluegrass
Length 2:10
Label Warner Bros. Records K 16223
Writer(s) Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, Don Reno, arranged by Eric Weissberg, Steve Mandel
Producer Joe Boyd

"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. Due to the unique sound of the song and its inclusion in the film, it went straight to #2 on the U.S. pop charts.

The piece was arranged and performed for the movie for guitar and banjo by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel and was on the movie's soundtrack album. The piece was originally composed by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith and Don Reno as a duel between a 5-string banjo and a tenor banjo entitled Feuding Banjos in 1955.[1]

The composition is commonly used to depict rural living people, most commonly mountain people of the southern region of the United States.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] References in popular culture

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[edit] Music and radio

  • 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.
  • "Dueling Xylophones" by the comedian Bill Bailey
  • "Dueling Tubas" by Martin Mull
  • On The Amazing Adventures of DJ Yoda, the DJ uses the banjo part from the song as a counterpoint to his scratching, using vinyl sounds to reproduce a melody similar to the original. The track is called "Duelling Banjos" and retains much of the structure of the original, with stereotypical hillbilly catcalls spliced in for effect.
  • Covered by British Punk band Toy Dolls.
  • Radio-host Ed Schultz uses "Dueling Banjos" as part of a recording involving Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell over Iraq.

[edit] Television

  • "Dueling Brandos" was performed by John Belushi and Peter Boyle on Saturday Night Live.
  • Steve Martin and Lubbock Lou and his Jughuggers play "Dueling Banjos" for the closing number in an episode of The Muppet Show.
  • In the Married with Children 1988 episode "The Camping Show", Al Bundy and Steve Rhoades are replaying the banjo scene ("Dueling Banjos") of that film, in which Ed O'Neill had a cameo as a deptury
  • 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 Simpsons episode "Boy Scoutz N' The Hood" from 1993, 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 Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. two-part episode "High Treason" from 1994, Pete Hutter and Sheriff Aaron Viva pass the time in their cell acting out the song.
  • In the opening scene of the Season Four premiere of Home Improvement, "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 Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "Fresh Prince, The Movie", the beginning of "Dueling Banjos" is used to transition to commercials.
  • In the opening episode of the Irish sitcom Father Ted in 1995, a TV crew, who have come to Craggy Island to interview Ted Crilley, end up getting stuck on the beach, where one of the crew plays a guitar battle parodying the one in Deliverance with a local islander.
  • In the Futurama 2000 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 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 wants the harpist at his wedding ceremony to play the piece.
  • In the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law 2005 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 2005 Family Guy episode "The Perfect Castaway", Peter Griffin engages Michael Moore in a flatulence contest in the style of "Dueling Banjos".
  • A skit called "Dueling Carsons/Foxworthys" is used on ESPN Classic's Cheap Seats.
  • In the NCIS episode "Suspicion", Tony and McGee sing the opening part of "Dueling Banjos" to explain to Ziva what Boondocks are.
  • In a 2007 MINI commercial, two MINI Cooper owners attempt to outdo one another with upgrades and modifications to their respective vehicles with "Dueling Banjos" as the background music.
  • In an E4 advert for Yell.com, It shows "music lessons" typed into the website search bar. The music played is Duelling Banjos.

[edit] Film

  • In the 1993 film, The Beverly Hillbillies, the extended members of the Clampett family play "Dueling Banjos" in an airplane.
  • In the 2003 film, Big Fish by Tim Burton, one of the residents of Spectre (played by Billy Redden, the same actor who famously played the song in Deliverance) is playing "Dueling Banjos".
  • In the 2007 film Kill Buljo its used when the police man Sid is raped by the two ugly guys by the river Alta.

[edit] Computer Games

[edit] Chart positions

Year Chart Position
1973 Billboard 200 1

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.donreno.com/bio.htm Don Reno biography
Preceded by
Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player by Elton John		 Billboard 200 number-one album
March 17, 1973 - April 6, 1973		 Succeeded by
Lady Sings the Blues (soundtrack) by Diana Ross