Joe Boyd: uncertainty

Transcript context

…Now, for me, the “Dueling Banjos” scene in the movie Deliverance is one of the great moments in Hollywood cinema. What was your role in that? John Boorman was the director. At that time, I had the title, director of music services for Warner Brothers films. I had a big office in the music bungalow on the lot, and directors and producers would come to see me and say what they wanted. “Get me John Williams.” And I’d pick up the phone and call the agent of John Williams. In this case, John Boorman came to see me, and he had a cassette that he had recorded off the car radio while driving around Georgia looking for locations. The cassette was of an instrumental bluegrass track called “Dueling Banjos.” He said, “I want to use this in a scene, so we have to prerecord it so that the actors can mime, but I also want to use the theme, the melody, the ideas in that as the basis of the score for the whole movie. So, I need a banjo player who can play it straight, and play it slow, and play it in minor key and in major key, and play it upside down, and sideways, like that. ” I said, “I know just the guy, Bill Keith.” I don’t know if you know Bill Keith, but he was one of the greats. He played with Bill Monroe for many years, but he was an MIT graduate and a city guy who mastered the bluegrass banjo. He could play Bach on the banjo, and he could do anything. I tracked down Bill Keith, and he was in Ireland. He had decided he had to learn how to play pedal steel guitar, and he was touring with Kathie Dalton. I said, “When are you going to be back? I need you in Atlanta to do this session.” He said, “Nah, I met this girl. I think I’m going to stay in Ireland for a while. Get [Eric] Weissberg to do it.” I said, “Okay.” I knew Eric, and I thought he was pretty good. Not quite as good as Bill, but pretty good. I called Weissberg, and he came to Atlanta with his regular guitar player, and we did as Boorman asked. Boorman came to the session for a bit. We played it upside down, backwards, to speed and everything. Then we took it up to the location and did the playback with the strange-looking young boy and the city guy with the guitar and that whole scene. I was there when they shot it, but the funny part of it was that when the film was finished, one of my jobs was to go across the street to the record company and promote the film music to the record company to get them excited about it. I played them “Dueling Banjos,” and I said, “John Boorman thinks this should be a single.” They said, “Nah, come on. Are you kidding? Bluegrass? What are you talking about? We’re releasing Doobie Brothers and Neil Young. We’re not going to release this hayseed stuff.” I had to go back across the street and explain to the rec film company and to Boorman that the record company was not going to release it. They were furious, but at least I got the record company to press up 500 white label promos. Boorman took them with him when he started doing talk shows. He did a talk show in Minneapolis. His first date on his promotional tour was Minneapolis. cord company to press up 500 white label promos. Boorman took them with him when he started doing talk shows. He did a talk show in Minneapolis. His first date on his promotional tour was Minneapolis. The next morning, I got a call from Warner Brothers Records warehouse, saying, “Do you know about this record, number such and such?” I said, “Yes, that’s a promotion single for Deliverance.” He said, “Do you know where I can get some more of them? I just had an order for 5,000 copies from Minneapolis.” The record company said, “Okay, I guess we’ll release it.” Then they had this number one record.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.