Dueling Banjos — Deliverance — Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell

DUELING BANJOS ~ Guitar & Banjo Song ~ Deliverance

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Published on Mar 30, 2014

The Dueling Banjos scene from the 1972 American thriller film “Deliverance” by John Boorman.

delicious. truly.

please note the Hollywood trickery, though… from that wiki place

Use in Deliverance

In Deliverance, a scene depicts Billy Redden playing it opposite Ronny Cox, who joins him on guitar. Redden plays “Lonnie,” a mentally challenged and inbred, but extremely gifted, banjo player. Redden could not actually play the banjo and the director thought his hand movements looked unconvincing. A local musician, Mike Addis, was brought in to depict the movement of the boy’s left hand. Addis hid behind Redden, with his left arm in Redden’s shirt sleeve. Careful camera angles kept Addis out of frame and completed the illusion, though anyone familiar with bluegrass banjo playing can see that the left-hand movements do not match up with the music produced, and that the banjo being used (an open-back instrument) could never produce the music one hears (clearly from a resonator banjo). The music itself was dubbed in from the recording made by Weissberg and Mandell and was not played by the actors themselves.^[4] Two young musicians, Ron Brentano and Mike Russo, had originally been signed to play their adaptation for the film, but instead it was performed by Weissberg and Mandell.^[5]

“Dueling Banjos” was arranged and performed for the film by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, and was included on its soundtrack.^[6] When Arthur “Boogie” Smith was not acknowledged as the composer by the filmmakers, he sued and eventually won, receiving songwriting credit as well as royalties.^[7]