Bluegrass Now - December 2008

In The Studio With Steve Martin

Martin records new bluegrass project
with producer/old friend John McEuen,
plus Scruggs, Parton, Gill, Duncan, Douglas, Trischka, Wernick, O'Brien, etc.

EXCLUSIVE by Nancy Cardwell

Added 11/3/08

Steve Martin is the actor/writer/comedian who made the phrase, "Excuuuuuuse me!" part of the American English lexicon in the 1970s.

He holds the record for guest appearances on Saturday Night Live (25 times), where he created memorable characters like "The Ramblin' Guy" and (with Dan Aykroyd) the Festrunk Brothers, Czechoslovakian playboys who claimed to be "two wild & crazy guys." He can do magic and balloon tricks—dating back to a high school job he had at Disneyland--and at times he has walked onstage in bunny ears, Groucho glasses, or with an arrow through his head. Steve's stand-up comedy routine and early albums included music, in routines that convinced the world no one could be unhappy when they heard the sound of the banjo. His hit song, "King Tut," released during the popular traveling exhibit of the Egyptian king's tomb artifacts, was backed by the Toot Uncommons (also known as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) and went to #17 on the pop charts in 1978.

Steve is a card-carrying member of Mensa who majored in philosophy at California State University at Long Beach before transferring to UCLA to major in drama. He is a former television comedy writer for the Smothers Brothers, John Denver, Glen Campbell and Sonny & Cher. In addition to starring in well-known movies like The Jerk; ¡Three Amigos!; Cheaper By the Dozen; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; Roxanne; All of Me; Parenthood; Father of the Bride; Shopgirl and The Pink Panther; he's written plays; screenplays; eight books; and has been published numerous times in The New Yorker.

Martin has also been a serious banjo player since high school, when he used to trade licks with a classmate named John McEuen, who later went on to co-found The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. That group released Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the seminal album that introduced millions to bluegrass and traditional country music for the first time.

I met John McEuen in the early 1990s when I was working as feature editor for Branson's Country Review magazine in Missouri, and have written about him several times since then. He's good about staying in touch and has always kept me in the publicity loop about each interesting twist in his creative career. The "String Wizard" never seems to run out of intriguing new ideas and projects.

When John emailed me and asked if I'd like to come over and take some photos at a studio session with his longtime friend, banjo player Steve Martin, I said "Sure," and went out to buy my first digital camera. Monday and Tuesday, October 6 and 7, were rainy, gray days in Nashville, but inside Studio B at the famed Ocean Wave Studio on Music Row, the room was lit up by stars for two days straight.

I walked in Monday morning to find Dolly Parton and Vince Gill discussing their vocal parts on "Pretty Flowers" (a sweet duet with a memorable melody, written by Steve) with John, who is producing the recording. Dolly's assistant, Judy Ogle, was also there, along with Steve's wife Anne Stringfield, their dog Wally (a 2½-year-old yellow lab), engineers Pat McMakin and Rob Clark, and another photographer.

Anne, a former editor for The New Yorker, is obviously a woman of good taste, because she went along with Steve's idea to have bluegrass band Hot Rize play at their wedding last year.

Ocean Wave used to be a church, and the light streaming in through the stained glass windows lent a calm beauty to the surroundings. Steve said he wrote "Pretty Flowers" while riding his bicycle, promptly forgot the melody for several years—and then it suddenly came back. Vince and Dolly commiserated, saying the same thing had also happened to them (forgetting melodies they wrote, but not necessarily while riding bicycles.)

While listening to a playback of the duet, Dolly asked Steve, "Does it make you nervous? Being in the studio with other people singing a song you wrote?" She went on to say that sometimes hearing other singers interpret one of her songs worries her, because she doesn't know if they'll sing it exactly like she heard it in her head when she wrote it.

Martin, surprisingly reserved and a bit shy in person, thought for a minute. "No," he finally responded, smiling. "I would be nervous if they were bad singers." That definitely wasn't the case with Gill and Parton, arguably the best friends a country song ever had. The duet is about an older couple, thinking back on their first date—when he "brought her pretty flowers, took her out to dinner, told her funny stories" and they fell in love.

Wally, spread out on the floor like a yellow bearskin rug, seemed unimpressed, although he was probably just waiting for his namesake tune, an instrumental by Steve called "Wally on the Run." He did get up occasionally to make the rounds, sniffing the carpet like a canine vacuum cleaner in search of bagel crumbs, before plopping down again at Anne's feet. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but he can run fast, Anne told us. Wally did get excited (and who wouldn't?) about meeting Earl Scruggs when he arrived later in the afternoon. Earl loves dogs, and Steve ran Wally through his tricks for the legendary banjo player—shaking hands, rolling over, etc.

"‘Wally on the Run,'" McEuen deadpanned, "is a song written in tribute to a dog that rarely runs." Martin said he'd like to put the tune up on YouTube.com, with a video of Wally running across the yard, full-tilt.

Earl added his signature banjo part to "Daddy Played the Banjo," another original Martin song with a unique melody and heartfelt lyrics. After Earl laid down his part, bluegrass/studio megastars Stuart Duncan (fiddle & mandolin) and Jerry Douglas (Dobro) dropped by to lend their magic to a few tracks. Tim O'Brien came by later in the week to sing lead on "Daddy Played the Banjo," and Kenny Malone added some tasteful percussion.

After listening to the "Pretty Flowers" cut, "Stu Bob" Duncan simply shook his head and said, "Can you imagine the world without Dolly Parton? What if that had happened?" No one had an answer. The thought was inconceivable.

Duncan played McEuen's mandolin, which has the second G and D strings tuned an octave higher than the first strings—which helps John achieve something close to a cross-picking sound without having to hold one of the double strings down with a fingernail like Jesse McReynolds does it. "That's too hard to do," he says. "I started tuning my mandolin that way years ago with the Dirt Band to get out of the guitar range in the mix, and now I like it so much I can't go back."

"The idea for the album came up suddenly," said Martin, sipping on a diet Dr. Pepper. "I'd written five or six more songs in recent years, and discovered I had enough to make an album. I didn't think it would get this big," he added, humbled by the presence of the rmusicians in the studio with him that day, "with people like Earl Scruggs and Dolly Parton on it."

The project's working title is The Crow, named for an original instrumental Steve recorded for Tony Trischka's recent Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular album on Rounder Records. No label or release date has been determined yet. "I'm taking my time and I'll wait to get it finished until I think about putting it out," he explained. "I like to work privately and quietly on all the projects I do. For example, when I write a book I don't get a publisher before I finish writing."

Though not a prolific songwriter, Martin has always been good at it, according to McEuen, who added that Steve has penned several tunes, like "Saga of the Old West," that he wishes he had written himself. "Everything I've written so far is on this record," Steve admitted matter-of-factly. Four are new cuts of previously released songs from his comedy LPs. The Steve Martin Brothers,, released in 1981, featured one side devoted to comedy--the flip side was all banjo music--but this is his first all-music album, and possibly the launch of his big bluegrass career. "Yeah, I guess so," he laughed in a slightly self-deprecating manner that would likely appeal to bluegrass fans. "I hope they like the songs," he added simply. "If they might play and sing some of them, it would be very fulfilling to me."

As teenagers, Martin and McEuen were impressed by the live banjo playing of Doug Dillard when The Dillards came to California in the 1960s, but they were both awestruck and enormously influenced by Flatt & Scruggs' albums. "Earl Scruggs was my inspiration," Martin said. "I found out that John was also learning to play the banjo, and that's what cemented our friendship—playing and practicing the banjo."

He was visibly moved that Earl and his son, Gary, came to the session to help him with the project. Steve made it a point to tell his hero that the highlight of his banjo-playing career occurred when Scruggs appeared at the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors Gala in Washington D.C. to play "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." Along with Leon Fleisher, Diana Ross, Martin Scorsese and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Steve was being honored that day for his creative accomplishments. He has also, twice before, been thrilled to play banjo with Scruggs--on Late Night with David Letterman, and at The New Yorker Festival.

McEuen and Martin started talking about making this album last spring. "I was at his place last April and he said, ‘I've got these banjo tunes; I don't know if they're any good,'" John recalled. "He had recorded solo banjo tracks, so I took a copy back to my home studio and added chords, a bunch of instruments and rhythm tracks. I sent them back to him and he spent the next few days going, ‘This is fantastic!' Sometimes people don't know how good they are at doing something. Steve is a real thorough, creative guy. Everything I've seen him do, he'll take it as far as he can, with real seriousness about making it good. He told me, ‘I'd like to make an album,' and I said, ‘I thought you were taking the year off.' And he said, ‘That's just from movies.'"

One of the reasons McEuen got involved as producer was simply to get Steve excited about his own music after 45 years of playing the banjo. Playing has certainly been more on the front burner for him recently, with live and recorded collaborations and jam sessions involving Tony Trischka and Pete Wernick, along with Scruggs.

McEuen feels his friend has something unique to offer. "Steve has the ability to create melodies that aren't concerned with including the hottest jam lick," he explained. "The melody is more important in his licks. It's the difference between playing an extremely complicated lick and playing something with a memorable melody. His instrumentals have that same, different quality, too."

John's goal with the recording is to create an audio "photograph" of Steve, musically, at this moment in time. Evidently Martin can play the fire out of standards like "Little Maggie," and at first he was interested in including a few covers. But McEuen told him, "I think this should all be Steve Martin music. All the bluegrass standard statements have been made, so save that for a live stage show sometime. This will be your first album in 30 years, so it might as well be a statement that's all you."

The melodies were all written before the project began, but the lyrics and arrangement ideas came later—with advice from McEuen on the latter. "People are going to be pleasantly shocked about the level of integrity of this collection of his songs," he said. "Some of it is fast picking with lots of interplay between the instruments, and there's some sweet, Americana-sounding acoustic music. One song is an old country-sounding song, and all of them have great titles—like ‘Wally on the Run,' ‘Saga of the Old West' and ‘Words Unspoken.'"

As one might guess, McEuen relishes the role of producer, utilizing a number of tricks he's learned writing and recording film scores and albums over the years. "I love being given a free hand in production," he said. "It's not often one gets that opportunity. Usually you get a budget, you record and then you run out of time or money. Or you have to work with someone dead-set in their vision. You have to listen to the director when you're recording a film score. Steve is very open to work with on musical ideas. I like making things," he added. "I think this will be one of the best things I've ever made. I would put it in the top five, already."

In addition to participation from McEuen and Scruggs, two other legendary banjo stylists are involved on this project. "There's a middle section of ‘The Crow' that hadn't existed when I recorded my version," mentioned Tony Trischka, who plays on two tracks, "but it did make it onto Steve's (CD), and [the section] was composed by Béla Fleck just before the three of us did the Letterman show last year."

Pete Wernick plays on "Pretty Flowers" and "Words Unspoken," a tune he co-wrote with Steve. He explained that his role was "also along the lines of being on the ‘production team,' making suggestions about material, arrangements, even titles and overall presentation… I'm excited for Steve that this is going to represent very well his lifelong love of the banjo, while also doing a lot for the banjo and for bluegrass by exposing them to folks who'd normally not pay much attention to them."

McEuen said he'd been influenced by Steve ever since he was in high school, commenting that it's difficult to ignore a guy on the cheerleading squad who turns up at a ballgame wearing a pink ballet tutu and chanting outrageous original cheers. (Ask John to recite one the next time you see him.)

"Over the years I've watched him write things and do things. It's like working with the Charlie Chaplin of our era," McEuen said. "Chaplin wrote music for his own movies and directed his scripts. Steve is even broader than that. He's written very successful stage plays, his books have done well, and his movies have been well received." Steve is mainly concerned, John explained, with doing projects he likes, and he hopes that audiences will like them, too. "He makes things for people to enjoy. I was at his house when Pink Panther came out, and he was talking about how he didn't know why the critics hated it. It wasn't a Peter Sellers movie—it wasn't supposed to be, but I thought it was funny… Anyway, Steve went to two different screenings of the movie in Times Square in disguise, so he could see what the reaction was. He said, ‘Both times I went, people were laughing in the places I hoped they would.' It grossed $85 million; I'm not sure why the critics didn't like it! It's just really important to him, to do things that people like. And all that creative energy that people have admired in Steve Martin all these years has gone into his music. I'm just in the privileged position of being the one putting it together as a producer."

There will be 15 songs on the recording, in a style McEuen described thusly: "If you drew a line from The Music Man to Disneyland, to Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring album, to Flatt & Scruggs and crossed over to the Dillards on the way—that's where the influence for this album comes from… from my perspective, anyway. That's where Steve and I both came from."

John and Steve met each other the summer before their senior year at Garden Gate High School. "We used to play chess every lunch period," John said. "There wasn't a whole lot to the conversation other than ‘check' and ‘checkmate.' I think I said ‘checkmate' more often," he added, laughing. "We worked at Disneyland and sometimes would play chess by telephone, from two different stores, when business was slow."

They heard the banjo live for the first time in 1964, when John's older brother, Bill, invited Dave Simpson from McCabe's Guitar Shop over to the McEuen house. Dave knew four songs: "The Ballad of Jed Clampett"; "Hard, Ain't It Hard"; "Jesse James" and part of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown." Martin scraped together $200 and bought a banjo from Simpson—an open-back Gibson RB170.

"Around that time period I saw the Dillards for the first time," John continued, "which got me started for real. We both acquired banjos… Steve would come over to my house after school and I'd show him some lick I had learned, and he'd take it from there. Even in the early days, he was able to take some technique and come up with his own songs. He started doing that in the early ‘70s. Both of us liked frailing and three-finger style. In fact, Steve is one of the sweetest frailers I know—he's very sensitive and he has a light touch."

His timing is also impeccable, McEuen said. "Once, during the sessions, he was recording a song that Russ Barenberg was kicking off with guitar. The guitar was to play the exact melody, and Steve is capable of playing exactly the same thing in the same way, a half hour later, when it's one of his songs… So anyway, the first time through, Steve was rushing. I told Tony (Trischka), ‘Let's let him run it through once. He'll get it.' Steve is a professional ‘taker of directions.' That's what he does for a living. A movie director will tell him, ‘Go stand over there. Say that louder,' and he does it. I told him, ‘Steve, you're ahead of the guitar. Listen to him and do exactly what he's doing,' and he said, ‘Okay, I got it.' The next time through, he played it perfectly, totally locked in with Russ. With one comment, he completely nailed it. Tony and I looked at each other and said, at the same time, ‘I wish I could do that.'"

People ask John if Steve is funny all the time. "He's not," McEuen said, "but if you wait, it comes out. I took him a Deering banjo one time in Toronto, on my way to a Dirt Band festival. Janet Deering wanted to give him a banjo, and he got excited about it like a kid with a new train set under the Christmas tree. He was sitting in a trailer on the set of this huge production with his dog then, Roger. I gave him the banjo, and he said, ‘Oh, man. I love those Goodtime banjos. I was just telling my driver today he should get one. Roger, go get my picks! Oh, you don't know where they are. I'll get them.' Then he said, ‘Let's get a camera and take a picture for Janet.'" Still laughing at the memory of Martin ordering his dog to fetch his picks, John added, "Steve has that Vince Gill or Willie Nelson quality about things of that nature… In other words, he still gets excited about music, and is not jaded."

After knowing each other for 45 years, theirs is the kind of friendship in which a few months can sometimes go by with little or no contact, but when they see each other again it's as if no time has passed. "Steve is very—I'm not sure if humble is the word, but he's very dismissive about his various accolades and accomplishments," John said. "He told me recently, ‘I'll be in L.A. next week, so I can hear that cut. I've got to do something out there. It'll only take half a day.' When I asked him what he was doing in L.A., he said, ‘Oh, I've got to present something at the Emmys.' It's just what he does for a living. He doesn't make a big deal about it. Now, if I were presenting something at the Emmys, I'd be on the phone to all my friends in the press immediately!"

Steve has always taken his banjo playing seriously, and he usually has one with him. On the new recording, he plays two banjos: a 1926 Gibson Florentine and an open-back Gibson RB170 frailer from the 1950s, the very same five-string he bought from Dave Simpson all those years ago. "I think this album is going to be well-received and will put bluegrass-influenced acoustic music in front of a wider audience, because of Steve's ability," McEuen commented in closing. "And I think that's a good thing."

More About Steve Martin

Awards

* Along with the other writers for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Steve won an Emmy Award in 1969.

* In 1978 Steve won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for Let's Get Small, and in 1979 for A Wild and Crazy Guy. He also shared a 2001 Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance with Earl Scruggs (and others) for his banjo performance of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown."

* On October 23, 2005, Martin was presented with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

* Martin was honored at the 30th Annual Kennedy Center Honors on December 1, 2007.

Comprehensive Steve Martin bio by Dominic Wills:
www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/biographies/steve_martin_biog.html

Official Steve Martin website:
www.stevemartin.com

Steve's essay on the banjo (highly recommended): www.stevemartin.com/world_of_steve/print/banjo.php


What's New With The String Wizard?

During the sessions for Steve Martin's new project, JOHN McEUEN kindly shared news of some of his latest musical adventures…

John is now entering his fourth year as radio host for the XM program Acoustic Traveler, which can be found on The Village (channel 15) on the first Tuesday of the month at noon and the following Friday at midnight, Saturday at 6 PM and Monday at 6 PM, all Eastern Standard Time. The show is "like coming over to my house and having me talk about people I've met, and then playing music from them," he explains. "I only play people I know, or people I've met or recorded with." In other words, this is a musical scrapbook, and John's commentary provides the captions for the songs.

Fans will want to go to iTunes and download the new version of "Mr. Bojangles" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with guests Keith Urban and Dierks Bentley singing with Jeff Hanna. The Dirt Band will start another tour in February 2009, with 30 dates booked for the year. "We'll probably have our 40th year anniversary tour in 2009," John laughs, "since it will be 43 years. We get to things, eventually. We can just say we slept in or something."

John was inducted into the Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame in Omaha, Nebraska this year. He finished his third film score for the year, a documentary called Howard's Trail, about "a 72-year-old Colorado cowboy who has been doing the same thing all his life," John says.

He always enjoys playing bluegrass festivals as a solo artist and he'd like to do more. "It's fun to put people together at the end of the show and play some of the Circle music. If they call me, I'll bring my banjo, mandolin, guitar and fiddle and do what I can with them," John smiles.

He was especially proud that reviewer Eddie Collins listed John's own String Wizards as one of his most influential banjo albums in the November issue of Banjo Newsletter. "Steve (Martin) read it to me and said, ‘Hey, this is cool!' That's better than a Grammy to me. Well, better than a second Grammy," he clarifies.

"I love what I do, and I've always done it without worrying a whole lot what people thought about me… because I play the banjo!" John chuckles. "I tell people, when I'm onstage, ‘Imagine what it would be like next Monday morning to go into the bank to ask for a loan, and then tell them you play the banjo for a living.'" The audience, he says, always laughs. His response: "See, that's the kind of laugh I get at the bank, too."

Get caught up with John at www.johnmceuen.com.