Feuding (Dueling) Banjos

I am going to take Ryan to a dixieland jazz band on Friday night at a local gallery, and thought I would show Ryan some clips of a jazz band, so he would know what to expect, so tonight we were searching and watching some music clips on YouTube.

I actually found some good ones, and well, a three-year old’s mind jumps from one thing to another, and he saw a banjo in one of the clips and one clip led to another and before I knew it, we were watching Feuding Banjos (most people know this song as Dueling Banjos, but Feuding Banjos is the original name of the song), from…the movie gulp- Deliverance.   (clicking on this link will only send you to the music clip that we watched.)

I don’t know why I didn’t just scroll down to find a band playing the song, I guess I just clicked on the first one I saw and Ryan loved the guitar and the boy playing the banjo in it.  Uh, I have never seen the entire movie- only bits and pieces here and there on TV, and I have no desire to see it- and that certainly isn’t a movie for a child, nevertheless.

But Ryan loved the banjo and the guitar, and he was clapping his hands, and even Cole was bouncing around to the music. The song is actually a very technical and challenging piece of music, and the banjo (despite it’s stereotype) is one of the MOST difficult instruments to play, let alone master.  I think it is pretty cool when people can play the banjo really well.

Anyway, back to the clip- the boy in the movie, wasn’t really playing the banjo- it was Eric Weissberg, according to You Tube posts and Wikipedia.

So after this is all done, I pop my head in the living room, and this is what I see:

My little boy tells me he is the boy on the computer, and he is playing his banjo (a plastic golf club).  (If this picture doesn’t make sense to you, go back above and click on the link to Deliverance, the music clip we watched, and look at the boy playing the banjo- Ryan was mimicing him.)

So on one hand I want to laugh because this is just as about sweet and innocent as you can get, and on the other hand it kind of creeps me out too- oh well, I guess that is what I get for not thinking about it, before I showed him the clip.

However, here is another link to a band named, Groundpig, playing  Feuding Banjos, if you want to hear the song but don’t want to open the Deliverance can of worms. 

Okay, I think I have written enough about this, and I never thought I would be spending this much time writing about Deliverance.  I think I need to go take a shower, because I have the creepys.  🙂