MONDAY

• Home
• Video
• Podcasts/RSS 
• Local Showtimes
• Past Shows
• Blogs
• About the Show
• Tell Tavis
• Features
• Mobile

RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Martin's official site
• "Steve Martin Picks And Grins On Banjo Album"
• Throw Down Your Heart
• Mr. Martin's bio

E-mail a friend

Full Interview (23:28)
 

Tavis: Pleased and honored to welcome Steve Martin to this program. The iconic comedian has achieved so much success in a career that includes legendary films, bestselling books, and plays, and the distinction of hosting a little show called "Saturday Night Live" more than anyone in all of history.

His latest project, though, focuses solely, as will most of our conversation, on his music, specifically the banjo. The new CD is called "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo." On May 30th he'll be making his debut at the Grand Old Opry following three benefit performances at the Rubin Museum in New York City.

Steve Martin, an honor to have you on the program.

Steve Martin: Nice to be here, thank you very much.

Tavis: It's good to see you, man. I was just whispering to you before we started that Bela Fleck, who I assume is a friend of yours --

Martin: Right.

Tavis: -- was on my radio show just a week or two ago and he has a wonderful documentary out about the --

Martin: "Throw Down Your Heart."

Tavis: You saw some of this?

Martin: Yeah.

Tavis: About the banjo in Africa.

Martin: The banjo originated in Africa as a -- I learned this from Bela's documentary, it's a very foreign-looking thing, it's like a gourd with three strings, but it's played very similar. It has a short string like the five-string banjo does. But I was doing a show a couple of nights -- last week and Dave Barry introduced me, the great humorist. And in his introduction he said, "Actually, the banjo is believed to be an American instrument but it was really invented over 4,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, which explains why the Jews left Egypt." (Laughter.)

Tavis: That's funny stuff. I was actually --

Martin: Well, he's funny. Dave's very funny.

Tavis: Yeah, Dave is funny. I was actually blown away because when Bela starts telling me the back story and I see this documentary about the banjo, when you think the banjo you think, most of us Americans think bluegrass, you think country music. You don't think Africa. But I was so fascinated to learn about this instrument.

Martin: Well, it makes a lot of sense that the banjo came over on the slave ships, I suppose, and it was kind of laid dormant. And it morphed and in the early 19th century it became what it is -- this round thing with a cat skin head with strings, and a lot of entertainers started playing it on stage. It's a very joyful instrument.

So it really caught on and it was also played in Appalachia, in the back woods, and it had its own time to nurture and develop the special sound that it has.

Tavis: You got turned on to this instrument how? How, when, where? Give me the how, when, where.

Martin: Yeah, it was the '60s, I was a teenager, and I lived in Orange County, California. And the folk music craze had really started and there was the Kingston Trio and there was Pete Seeger, and a lot of acts came through Orange County playing, including the Dillards. And I just fell in love with the banjo, I couldn't believe it.

I would go watch them play and it was like watching a mystery. And I bought a book -- I think Pete Seeger wrote it -- "How to Play the Five-String Banjo." I listened to records. I had a friend, John McKeon, who actually produced this record who was an instrumentalist already and he taught me some things. And I would actually take 33 RPM records of banjo songs and slow them down to 16 and then lower the tuning of the banjo down so it'd be in the same -- and pick out note for note so you just learned a song that way.

Tavis: So you're just self-taught.

Martin: Well, I guess so. A lot of people showed me things. I collected things, but --

Tavis: But you never took formal lessons or anything.

Martin: No, no, I never did. The farthest I got was in the book where they say, here's the way your fingers roll. And you memorize that, and here's another way, and here's another way. And then you start combining them, and then as time goes on you become more relaxed.

But it's always scary for someone who's an actor to put out a music record, because it can be the height of embarrassment. (Laughter.) And I think the worst album covers in history are celebrities who release music. I love my album cover, so I feel safe there.

Tavis: Put that up, Jonathan, and I'll have Mr. Martin explain what this album cover is.

Martin: Oh, well, it was actually submitted as a design by Jim and Sally Rat (sp) out of Colorado. There's another person involved here and I'm sorry -- his name will be on there, I've just forgotten momentarily. But it's one of these pastiche, amusing covers that I just really fell in love with when I saw it. I really -- they even put a slight -- if you look in the upper right-hand corner, there's a slight arrow through my head. (Laughs.)

Tavis: I see that, yeah. To your point, of the potential embarrassment that an actor or anybody else who is not known first and foremost as a musician, the potential embarrassment that one can suffer for putting out a horrible project, how did you get over that enough to end up on PBS with this project?

Martin: Well, at some point you have to believe in it. I wrote all the songs on the record.

Tavis: Some of them over 40 years ago.

Martin: Some of them I wrote over 40 years ago, about five of them, and then the rest of them are all in the last six years.

Tavis: Right.

Martin: And I had played enough -- I actually played on Earl Scruggs' album about nine, eight years ago.

Tavis: And won a Grammy for that.

Martin: And I won a Grammy, (laughter) and it's kind of ironic. The Grammy -- it was a group effort. We played "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," one of the great bluegrass banjo instrumentals, but because I was part of the group we all won Grammys. And my Grammy says, "best country instrumentalist." (Laughter.) So anybody who's actually a performer who comes over in the music business, they go, "What?"

Tavis: Wow, yeah.

Martin: So I'm practiced enough to know that -- and I had played on Tony Trishka's record, who's another great banjo player, a song on here called "The Crow," the song this album is titled after, and it became a little bit of a hit. So I was encouraged in that way.

Tavis: Tell me about these songs -- I'm always fascinated -- I had an artist on this program not long ago, speaking of names escaping me, it escapes me now, doing this every night, but I'm oftentimes amazed at how an artist writes a song that sits for so long -- in your case, four decades -- before they actually get heard, record it.

Martin: Right, record it? Well, even stranger is I had no -- I actually recorded some of them on the back of a comedy record I did in 1979 because I was essentially out of comedy material. I had no more. I was really at the end of my stand-up career in my own head, and so I recorded them on the back of this comedy album.

So some of them had been recorded before, but that's beside the point. There's one song on there that I had just the melody for 40 years and the songs are constructed, at least bluegrass songs, into kind of an A part and a B part. And I had the A part, I had the melody, but I couldn't figure out the B part, meaning, like, what comes next.

And I had this melody for that long and another banjo player, Pete Wernek, I said, "I've got this song." He said, "Let me try." So he came up with the B part. So we have co-credit on that. So it's called "Words Unspoken," it's a nice, pretty tune.

Tavis: Let me go back, Steve, to something you said a moment ago -- we'll come back to this music a few times here in the course of the conversation. But since you went there, let me follow up.

In '79, by your own admission, in your head, said you, you were out of comedy material. What's that feel like, number one, and how does a comedian, especially given the success that you had in the '70s, how does one decide that he or she is out of comedy material? What's that mean?

Martin: Well, what I mean is I'm out of stand-up. Psychologically, it's just finished. I took it as far as I could take it, and it was going to be very redundant if I kept going, for me.

And fortunately I did this movie called "The Jerk" and it became a hit, and then I got into movies, which was -- I didn't realize that was my goal, but it really was. Somebody said something to me once -- they said, stand-up, they just go day to day and you have to keep working, you have to be out here.

He said, "But if you're an actor, you can not do something for three years and people still remember who you are and what you are. It's like you never went away." And I like that idea. (Laughter.)

Tavis: How did you discover that acting was the goal and not the stand-up comedian (unintelligible)?

Martin: Well, the truth is it wasn't acting that was the goal, it was movie comedy. And subsequently I think I became an actor the best way possible, which is earn while you learn. But in those movies I got to watch a lot of great actors and work with some great directors who taught me a lot about acting, and I sort of morphed into being an actor from a movie comedian.

Tavis: You said a moment ago earning while you're learning. One of the things I found fascinating just doing a little bit of reading about your back story that I didn't know, that when you were younger, you're pursing your dreams, following what you want to do, but as your career is unfolding, you're still going to school. You were going to Long Beach, you were going to UCLA.

Martin: Yes, I was going to Long Beach State College, I went to UCLA.

Tavis: Why were you still doing that? I love a love of learning, but.

Martin: Well, somebody in my high school -- I was at a -- the high schools in Orange County, there's no homework. (Laughter.) It was just something you did during the day. But there was an obligatory counsel meeting with a counselor and he said, "Are you going to go to college?" I said, "Oh, I guess so, I don't know."

And he said, "I think it'd be good in your career," because he knew I was interested in show business, "If you studied history." And it completely made sense to me. It's like oh, you'd have these references. You'd know about things. And I just didn't want to be a guy who grew up in show business. I wanted to have a collegiate background.

I thought it was just necessary for your own intelligence because you can't really do comedy, I think, without having -- I don't want to use the word intelligence, but an education. And some people have street smarts, but I didn't have that. I really learned a lot from college.

Tavis: You didn't develop street smarts working at Disneyland?

Martin: No. (Laughter.) Main Street, USA? No street smarts on Main Street, USA.

Tavis: That's funny. I'm laughing because somehow I think that come the new school year the enrollment in Orange County schools is going to go up significantly.

Martin: Well, they know there's no homework.

Tavis: Exactly. (Laughs.) If I had known that a few years ago, I would have gone to school in Orange County. That was my problem -- that homework kept getting me in trouble.

At any point in your career did you put this thing down, or have you always kept it in gear year to year?

Martin: I've always kept playing it, but there might have been times when I didn't play it for six or eight months, if I was traveling and I didn't want to carry it with me. But then I just started taking it with me everywhere I went and through the years I accumulated a couple of banjos so I put one in every room. The living room, the bedroom, the sort of family room I had one. So I always could pick it up, and I can't imagine what a hole there would be in my life without having the banjo around all the time and having this alternative life, in a strange way -- another part of the brain.

Tavis: When you're filming on location, this is in your trailer?

Martin: Oh, yeah. I've learned a lot of songs waiting in the trailer (laughter) for a movie to start. And I've forgotten them, of course, as soon as the movie's over.

Tavis: Would you mind picking that thing up?

Martin: Sure.

Tavis: I want to have you tell me about this particular -- I know you said you've got a few of these now. I want you to tell me the story about this particular banjo, number one. Then I want to have you demonstrate for me what this frailing -- is that what it's called?

Martin: Well, there's two things -- frailing.

Tavis: Frailing.

Martin: Yes. But there's several names for it. This is a particularly beautiful 1927 Gibson Florentine.

Tavis: Can you turn that back around? I want to see the back of this first.

Martin: Yeah, it's a --

Tavis: Jonathan, can you see this?

Martin: See, here's what happened.

Tavis: This is beautiful, yeah.

Martin: They used to play these on stage in the '20s, and they were all four-string banjos. And the four-string banjo, I can't play it because I'm not in the right tuning, but it's stuff that's plucka, plucka, plucka, plucka, plucka. And so they were show pieces -- it was the only instrument that was loud enough to get over all the (unintelligible) and the sound of the orchestra.

So they were very popular, and they were made as four-strings. And so almost -- almost -- all the five-string banjos that you see are vintage are actually originally four-string. I have the original neck and we put this neck on it 25, 30 years ago.

But it's still an old -- and it has a beautiful tone. And you can hear how loud they are. In fact, I have a friend who's a banjo teacher and he says the first thing he does is he takes the banjo from the student and goes like this and says, "See how loud it is? Be careful." (Laughter.)

Tavis: It'd be hard to steal this one, because on the neck here it's got your name here. Steve Martin.

Martin: Well, that won't stop it from being stolen. (Laughter.) Just unscrew that and put another name on it.

Tavis: So tell me about this frailing.

Martin: Well, frailing -- there's essentially two styles of five-string banjo playing. One is called three-finger -- that is credited to the great bluegrass artist Earl Scruggs, and he sort of formulated it into this great bluegrass tradition. I'll play that; I'm in a different tuning right now. I'll tune that down and play a sample of it for you.

But I'll do a little three-finger style. This is a song I wrote, the title album, "The Crow." And then I'll play the same song in a frailing style. It's also called claw hammer. When I grew up it was called frailing and then it was changed to claw hammer. But this is a three-finger style. I'll just do a little sample of "The Crow."

[Brief musical performance.]

And you can hear that in a lot of bluegrass, but the same song --

Tavis: Before you put those things down.

Martin: Yeah?

Tavis: You had those things -- what are these?

Martin: They're finger-picks.

Tavis: They're finger-picks.

Martin: They're made of metal and they just go on the --

Tavis: And you have to wear three of them to do this?

Martin: To do that style, you do. But frailing is different. You don't wear picks, and you play the melody with the back of your fingernail, essentially.

Tavis: Ouch.

Martin: No, no, it doesn't hurt.

Tavis: Okay. (Laughter.)

Martin: And the same song played in a frailing song would sound like this.

[Brief musical performance.]

You get the idea. I'm putting it down to a bluegrass tuning.

Tavis: So bluegrass has its own tuning?

Martin: Well, it has a traditional open G tuning; that was a C modal tuning. But I'll try to play it like a Scruggs style or something for you, so you get the idea. That's what you'd hear on a real bluegrass record. This is, for example, a sample of Earl Scruggs' great "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," played in his three-finger style.

[Brief musical performance.]

There's no way to frail that. (Laughter.)

Tavis: When you hear this instrument, the sound that you can create with it, what turns you on about the sound of the banjo? What do you like about the sound?

Martin: That's actually -- it's a strange thing, that's what got me into the banjo, was its sound. And it can be quite melancholy, surprisingly. I'm trying to think of something -- it can be played in a beautiful (plays banjo) -- and it has a lonesome kind of thing going for it, it has a high-energy thing. It's quite versatile in a very limited way. (Laughter.)

Tavis: I want to go back to this CD. Tell me, then, what's on the CD, what you chose to put on here.

Martin: Well, I put on --

Tavis: You have collaborations on here, too.

Martin: There are some really good collaborations.

Tavis: Dolly Parton's on here.

Martin: I'm very happy.

Tavis: Vince Gill's on here.

Martin: Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Mary Black, the great Irish singer, and Tim O'Brian, the great bluegrass singer. And I had these songs that I wrote as instrumentals and after we recorded them I thought, some of these could have lyrics. And I'd never written lyrics before. So I sat down and gave it a go and it worked out.

I got Vince Gill and Dolly Parton to sing one of the songs, they just did a great job -- "Pretty Flowers," that was called. And it's very thrilling. I've been in show business a long time, so it's hard to be surprised. But it's still very thrilling when you have two great artists like them or like Tim O'Brian and Mary Black sing your music and know that they're not singing it because it's me, but they actually liked it.

Tavis: What do you make, then, of Steve Martin's work as a songwriter?

Martin: Well, the banjo is -- I think these songs -- I don't want to brag about it but I do think the songs "New Songs for the Five-String Banjo" and they have -- I like mostly that they're melodic because a lot of banjo playing can be extremely fast, extremely showy, extremely complicated. And I just wanted to bring it back to the old melodies that I grew up with.

Tavis: Who's the audience for this in 2009?

Martin: Absolutely no one. (Laughter.) Well, no, first of all, I'm kidding. There's a huge country -- this is not country-western, this is a very different kind of music than that -- for traditional music or unamplified music. It's like a folk audience, it's a bluegrass audience. And there are festivals -- you could go to a bluegrass festival and there are, like, 25,000 people there.

But they don't make news. They're not covered by the media. They're not like rock concerts.

Tavis: Do you play these things sometimes?

Martin: I haven't, really, but I know there's -- I grew up going to the Topanga Canyon Banjo and Fiddle Contest out here in California and there's banjo-fiddle contests. Everything -- there's a market, it's just an esoteric market. I think "O Brother, Where Art Thou," the album to the movie, sold seven million copies and Alison Krause is selling millions of records in a bluegrass style.

Tavis: Before we wrap this show tonight we're going to play some footage for you of an appearance that Steve Martin made here in L.A. the other night that he referenced earlier. This is your first -- that was your first time playing in public --

Martin: It was the first time I ever -- playing in public doing more than one or two songs. I've played in public in my stand-up act, but I had never done a music show. And I was trying to just get my feet wet and see what it was like because it might be something interesting to do.

But I don't want to go charge people money -- this was for a charity -- if I'm not really ready for it.

Tavis: So what'd you make of the experience?

Martin: I liked it. I think the audience really liked the music, it had a good feeling, and I didn't prepare any comedy material but I was just kind of joking around, so that was fun.

Tavis: Are you ready to charge us now?

Martin: (Laughter.) I might --

Tavis: Are you there yet?

Martin: Yeah, I'm stunned that concerts --

Tavis: Will you take my money?

Martin: I found an old concert ticket of mine from the '70s, it was $10. And I was stunned to hear that -- well, tickets are $100. Gee whiz -- good. All I have to do is sell one ticket. (Laughter.) I'm ahead.

Tavis: You could command that. You could command that.

Martin: I could probably command one ticket, yeah. One ticket sale.

Tavis: So what do you -- the experience of having done this has convinced you -- I don't want to color the question too much deliberately -- the experience of having done this and playing on stage the other night in public has convinced you of what, if anything?

Martin: Well, that playing music can be a joy, one, and my whole life I really played alone, and that night I had a band with me, the Steep Canyon Rangers, who are a name in their own right, but they played with me and backed me up. And you can really make music with a band and it's not like doing stand-up comedy alone. It's a smoother feeling, a little easier feeling.

Tavis: So here's an impossible question -- the absolutely most ridiculous question you've ever been asked that I'm going to close our conversation with before I play this footage for our audience of you the other night.

So it's a stupid question, but if you absolutely had to give up the acting or the banjo, the comedic acting or the banjo, what goes? If you had to give it up, you could only do one of these things, which one you giving up? How stupid a question is that?

Martin: Well, it's not as stupid as one I had the other day, but. (Laughter.) I would say -- well, I would probably have to give up the banjo, just because I enjoy comedy so much and I love comedy. It's afforded me so much through the life, but I hope that that would never happen, because --

Tavis: The good news is you don't have to.

Martin: Yeah, you need both.

Tavis: It's just a stupid question.

Martin: You need both. You need the interior and the exterior. This is very interior and acting and comedy is very exterior.

Tavis: Very nicely put. Very nicely done, very nicely said, and speaking of nicely done, so is this CD. The new CD, the first CD, really, from Steve Martin playing his banjo is called "The Crow." Truly wonderful and just as advertised. (Laughter.) I love that, and I love the cover. Steve, nice to have you on the program.

Martin: Thank you very much.