Deliverance, the 1972 movie by John Boorman not only has a fantastic cast and story, but also a fantastic soundtrack, and within, the greatest banjo duel of history.
The movie, based on the homonymous novel by James Dickey, follows the trip of 4 businessman, Ed Gentry (Jon Voight), Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds), Bobby Trippe (Ned Beatty) and Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox) descending a river that will soon disappear due to the construction of a dam. This adventure deep in the country will make this group stumble upon some so-called "hillbillies", as well as some serious trouble.
But anyways enough of stories, we are here for the music, and Deliverance Bluegrass is king. Bluegrass is a music genre born in North America with deep roots in traditional music from Ireland, England and Scotland. You have heard this genre a million times in movies and TV almost every time a remote or rural area of the United States appears.
With a little bit of backstory for the movie and it's the soundtrack we can get to the main course now, the song "Dueling banjos", composed by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith. The first thing to know about this song is that it's lying, there's only one banjo in it, the other instrument is a guitar, and they're not duelling either, is a lot more like a conversation than anything else. The song appears fairly early in the movie and is a key piece in the most emblematic scene in the movie.
Our four protagonist are on their way to the river and stop in a remote gas station managed by "hillbillies". Ronnie Cox, who plays Drew Ballinger and is a fairly talented singer-songwriter and guitarist, starts tuning his guitar. A little kid with a banjo (and an implied disability) sitting by the gas station hears it and plays the same note he is tuning. Ronnie then starts playing some simple notes for the kid, who immediately and clumsily imitates. Ronnie plays them again and the kid follows suit. Ronnie then plays a couple of cords and, seeing that the kid is still following, little by little he amps up the difficulty. With the complexity and virtuosity of the melody rising so does the excitement of the little kid, who seems to have found in the stranger a new play friend.
The melodies from both instruments launch in a thrilling Bluegrass conversation, one of the managers from the gas station starts jumping and dancing, as the other businessmen laugh and enjoy the music. The melody then reaches its peak, were Ronnie just can't keep up with the kid's banjo and lets him the end of it, only coming back to share the last chord.
Billy Redden is the name of the kid (now a man, obviously) and, as you may have guessed, he's not a banjo virtuoso and doesn't have any disability, just a peculiar look that was accentuated for the movie. The actual banjo player is Eric Weissberg, who provides his left hand to draw those complex chords in the banjo for John Boorman to film. Likewise, even though Ronnie Cox knew his way through a guitar, and are his hands the ones you see playing in the movie, for the soundtrack is Steve Mandell the one playing the guitar.
I'm not discovering to anyone that soundtracks can make a good movie an excellent one, but this is a good example of a track that can even outshine the story. Thanks for reading and listening!