Eric Weissberg

Multi-instrumentalist Eric Weissberg will be remembered being a one-hit question for his 1973 smash “Dueling Banjos,” but which was only a little section of his lengthy profession being a studio room musician. Get good at of ten musical instruments — bass (acoustic and electrical), electric guitar, fiddle, banjo, kazoo, mandolin, pedal metal, Dobro, and jew’s harp — Weissberg provides followed a who’s who of folk-pop performers, including Judy Collins, Jim Croce, John Denver, Bob Dylan, Artwork Garfunkel, Richie Havens, Ian & Sylvia, Melanie, Tom Paxton, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Doc Watson, in addition to mainstream pop and rock and roll superstars like Burt Bacharach, David Byrne, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, and Speaking Minds, and such jazz performers as Bob Adam, Earl Klugh, and Herbie Mann within a profession that were only available in the past due ’50s and was still heading strong by the end of the hundred years. After graduating from the University or college of Wisconsin as well as the Juilliard College of Music, Weissberg was section of a community of youthful NEW YORK music artists who became thinking about old-time nation and bluegrass music in the past due ’50s and started to gather to try out on Weekend afternoons in Washington Square Recreation area in Greenwich Town. The group included Stefan Grossman, Roger Sprung, Bob Yellin, David Grisman, and Marshall Brickman, amongst others. In 1958, Weissberg, Yellin, and vocalist/guitarist John Herald created the Greenbriar Kids, among the 1st groups to try out at Gerde’s Folk Town, but Weissberg was using the music group only a short while before departing in 1959. He performed in the Newport Folk Event that summer time and started to obtain his 1st session work, showing up on information by Tommy Makem and Cisco Houston, amongst others. In 1963, he and Brickman documented a duo record for Elektra Information, New Proportions in Banjo and Bluegrass. Through the ’60s, Weissberg was a past due person in the folk group the Tarriers (with Brickman, Clarence Cooper, and Bob Carey), showing up on their last record for Decca Information, The Tarriers, that was documented live on the Bitter End coffeehouse in Greenwich Community. He was also an associate from the Blue Velvet Music group (with Jim Rooney, Richard Greene, and Costs Keith), which released the record Sweet Occasions on Warner Bros. Information in 1969. And he performed the planet premiere of Earl Robinson’s “Concerto for Five-String Banjo” with Arthur Fiedler as well as the Boston Symphony in 1967. But the majority of his period was spent carrying out session function. Between 1964 and 1969, he made an appearance on albums by Ian & Sylvia, Judy Collins, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Doc Watson, Nation Joe McDonald, Jim Croce, and John Denver, amongst others. He was just like busy in the first ’70s, showing up on albums by Herbie Mann, John Denver, Nation Joe McDonald, Melanie, Sha Na Na, Barbra Streisand, and Loudon Wainwright III, amongst others. Within his other program work of that time period, Weissberg received a contact to execute music for the film soundtrack. A film was being manufactured from Southern poet Adam Dickey’s best-selling novel Deliverance, in regards to a band of suburbanites who get a hunting trip within the woods which has unpredicted effects. Dickey, who published the screenplay, experienced heard a vintage banjo tune on the air and gotten the thought of using it inside a scene where among the heroes encounters a mute nation son and communicates with him by playing a banjo/acoustic guitar duet. Weissberg known as fellow musician Steve Mandell, and both journeyed to Atlanta to wait the firing and trainer the stars in miming their overall performance of the melody. That was the final Weissberg heard about it before fall of 1972, when Warner Bros. released the film and “Dueling Banjos,” because the track have been dubbed, begun to obtain such a response that Warner Bros. released the Weissberg/Mandell saving as an individual. The label didn’t bother to see Weissberg of its actions, plus some early copies from the disc had been even acknowledged to Deliverance. (In addition, it proved that, definately not being truly a traditional melody, the melody was in fact “Feuding Banjos,” compiled by Arthur Smith and initial documented by him for MGM Information in 1955.) Once the single became popular after getting into the graphs in January 1973, Warner Bros., which had obtained Elektra Information, dug in the ten-year-old Weissberg/Brickman recording New Measurements in Banjo and Bluegrass, changed the opening slashes on each part with “Dueling Banjos” and its own B-side, “End of the Fantasy,” and re-released it beneath the name “Dueling Banjos” from the initial Soundtrack Deliverance. Weissberg had not been informed of the action beforehand, either. Both single as well as the recording topped the graphs and went yellow metal. (The solitary also topped the simple listening graphs and made the very best Five of the united states graphs, as well as the record also topped the united states graphs.) The next calendar year, “Dueling Banjos” won Weissberg and Mandell the Grammy Prize for Best Nation Instrumental Functionality. Weissberg constructed a carrying out group, which he normally called Deliverance, offering Mandell, Charlie Dark brown, Tony Dark brown, and Richard Crooks, and performed some night clubs and concert halls. Reconciling with Warner Bros., he authorized a recording agreement using the label and documented an recording, Rural Totally free Delivery, which made an appearance in the graphs briefly in nov 1973. He held the music group together for some time, and even positioned a revival of “Yakety Yak” in the low reaches of the united states graphs in the springtime of 1975 on Epic Information, but “Dueling Banjos” really was a fluke, and quickly he was spending the majority of his period backing other music artists once again. Not really that he previously ever remaining such function. Between 1973 and 1975, he previously made an appearance on albums by Judy Collins, Jim Croce, John Denver, Richie Havens, Billy Joel, B.J. Thomas, Bob Wayne, Willie Nelson, and Esther Phillips, amongst others, even obtaining a contact from Bob Dylan to try out on Blood over the Monitors. From after that to the finish of the 10 years, his studio room clients included Bloodstream, Perspiration & Tears, John Denver, Bette Midler, Dory Previn, the Starland Vocal Music group, Loudon Wainwright III, Burt Bacharach, Leon Redbone, and Tom Paxton. An especially notable documenting was Jean Ritchie’s non-e But One (1977), which Ritchie was supported by a music group arranged by Weissberg; the LP was called Best Folk Record of the entire year by Rolling Rock magazine. Weissberg appears to have been much less mixed up in early ’80s, however in the second fifty percent of the 10 years he was noticed on albums by Leon Redbone, Speaking Minds, Aztec Two-Step, Artwork Garfunkel, Earl Klugh, Jude Cole, Peter, Paul & Mary, David Byrne, and Anita Carter. The first ’90s discovered him taking even more selected classes, though he still made an appearance on albums by Expenses Keith, Doc Severinsen, Judy Collins, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Robert Wayne Waller, and Tom Chapin. Within the middle-’90s, he started touring regularly like a back-up musician for Artwork Garfunkel, who got him perform “Dueling Banjos” within the display, but he also discovered time to perform occasional sessions such as for example those for Nanci Griffith’s Additional Voices, As well (1998), Bette Midler’s Bathhouse Betty (1998), the initial Broadway cast recording for The Civil Battle (1999), Tom Chapin’s This Pretty World (2000), and Judy Collins’ Judy Collins Live at Wolf Capture (2000).