[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