{"id":805571,"date":"2020-03-23T11:17:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T17:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=971278"},"modified":"2020-03-23T11:17:53","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T17:17:53","slug":"eric-weissberg-dueling-banjos-and-blood-on-the-tracks-musician-dead-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/eric-weissberg-dueling-banjos-and-blood-on-the-tracks-musician-dead-at-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Weissberg, \u2018Dueling Banjos\u2019 and \u2018Blood on the Tracks\u2019 Musician, Dead at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bluegrass musician Eric Weissberg, whose cover of the Arthur \u201cGuitar Boogie\u201d Smith instrumental \u201cDueling Banjos\u201d became an unlikely pop hit when it appeared on the soundtrack to the 1972 film Deliverance,<\/em> died Sunday at the age of 80 after a five-year struggle with dementia. His son, Will Weissberg, confirmed the musician\u2019s death to Rolling Stone.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cEric Weissberg was a consummate musician, a solid and seemingly effortless player of stringed instruments of all kinds \u2014 banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, pedal steel, and string bass,\u201d his lifelong friend and frequent collaborator Happy Traum wrote on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cDespite his prodigious talents and musical successes, he was humble, down-to-earth, and an easygoing companion with not a bit of artifice in him. He had many wonderful stories from his long career that he told in minute detail and with a twinkle of good humor that could keep you entertained for hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weissberg became infatuated with the banjo at a young age after watching a Pete Seeger performance at his Greenwich Village school as a child. When he was eight, Seeger himself began giving him lessons. He also attended hootenannies at Seeger\u2019s apartment, where he was able to see legends like Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly perform up close.<\/p>\n

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He enrolled at New York\u2019s Juilliard School of Music in the late 1950s and began gigging with folk acts the Greenbriar Boys and the Tarriers. As a member of the Tarriers, he backed Judy Collins on a European tour and later performed on her 1965 LP, Fifth Album.<\/em><\/p>\n

But his life changed forever in 1972 when Warner Bros. music producer Joe Boyd asked if he\u2019d record a cover of the 1954 Arthur \u201cGuitar Boogie\u201d Smith instrumental \u201cDueling Banjos\u201d<\/a> for the movie Deliverance.<\/em> The song is played early in the film, when a group of four businessmen (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox) visit a gas station during a canoe trip in a remote part of Georgia and encounter a mentally challenged banjo player who performs the song as an impromptu duet with Cox\u2019s character. It\u2019s an unsettling scene that serves as a harbinger for many of the horrific events that come later in the film.<\/p>\n