[background noise]
[is it too loud?]
[is it on now?] banjo playing music
banjo music louder
[STUDS] as far as an FMT audience is concerned
I think it's almost needless to tell you
who's banjo that is you're listening to
it's the banjo of the number one
five-string banjo picker in the country -
[PETE] Oh, go on!
[STUDS] - as far as we're concerned
the voice you recognize I imagine immediately
that's Pete Seeger
sitting up with us here
[PETE] You've got to quit being a disc
jockey for a change...I am not a number one banjo picker
in the first place, in any kind of art you can't say
the number one...you can't say, how can you say so-and-so is the best pianist
in the world? He might be best to somebody, he might be worst
to somebody else {STUDS] Pete, I think it's this commercial life I'm leading [PETE] ...and as far as banjo
picking goes, there's a fellow down in West Virginnia who can just play
rings around me named Earl Scruggs. He's the king of the banjo pickers
as far as I'm concerned. [STUDS] It's about three years ago, Pete you mentioned the name of Earl Scruggs
you remember the record, uh, the tune that he played [PETE] Foggy mountain
Breakdown [SUDS] How'd that go? [PETE] He plays a very syncopated kinda style
[fast banjo picking music]
[STUDS] About how many songs would you say, this is just for statistical purposes, about how many songs [PETE] oh!
[STUDS] ...would you say you know? [PETE] I don't know, well, when I was in the Army, a fellow and I once sat down
and we wrote down all the songs that I knew . It was about
three or four hundred, but some of those I didn't know all the way through, and they included a lot
of popular songs and hymns and so on
Army songs, and I've learned maybe a couple hundred since then, but I forgot
forgotten a couple of hundred too, so I don't know. [STUDS] Well those you do know and those
you remember are enough to fill a number of books and albums, and on that subject
Pete, for the FMT audience, those who may be aware of it
uh, not the last time Pete was with us, but the time before that,Pete and Big Bill were guests of the Almanac
and Folkways got pretty excited about that session and that's gonna come out as an album shortly. You know anything about that Pete?
[PETE]Yeah, the drndest things come out on records these days, you buy this record and all you'll hear is Studs and
me and Big Bill talkin, and talkin and we play a tune [STUDS] -laughs-
and we interrupt the tune to talk some more
play a contrasting type of tune
[STUDS]Well what sort of
tune will you say hits you now, by the way Pete, it was about two weeks ago Dick Bennet was here in this very studio [PETE] Hey! [STUDS] we did the - we used the same technique
a stetfoot, sitting together, and uh,
remember we asked Dick and he asked to be remembered to you, of course
pretty fondly, Dick, play whatever comes to your mind while you're sitting here and it worked out pretty well
[PETE] Well, let me think (tuning banjo strings)
[PETE]I was down in southern Louisiana last onth
in a part of the country where manynpeople still speak French the descendents
of the 4000 French-Canadians
who were shipped down there two hundred years agoby the English [STUDS] The Acadiens?
[PETE] Maybe you remember, Longfellow's [STUDS]"Evangeline" [PETE That's right
well I was in the town where she's buried, of course, her real name was Emmaline
uh, and Longfellow, I think he changed her name when he wrote the story
about her, but (banjo) I was swapping
songs down there, and doggone if I didn't find they knew a lot of the same songs I knew
but with different words! For example, they had one that
went something like this. You know, they speaka funny variety of french, this is not Parisienne
French (sings, in Cajun French)
[PETE] You see it's a girl, she says "Where have you been?
my good husband, where have you been my good old man, you're the best drinker
in the country [STUDS] laughs [PETE] and he answers, I'm gonna
go out to get drunk" It goes on for about ten verses. Well you know
I recognized that melody, and when I heard the words it reminded me I heard