This week's New Yorker magazine has an interesting column by banjoist/comedian Steve Martin, reaching all the way back to a New Yorker column written by Marshall Brickman in 1976!
Martin speaks glowingly of Brickman's "earlier" work with Eric Weissberg making the LP "New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass", which he calls perhaps the second or third most influential banjo record ever made.
In the 1990s Martin moved into the same building where Brickman lived in Manhattan and they connected. Brickman corrected Martin's errors in playing his song "Riding the Waves".
Steve reveals that Brickman had become a movie writer (co-writing Annie Hall with Woody Allen), a Broadway writer (Jersey Boys and The Addams Family). He marvels that Brickman originated perhaps Johnny Carson's most famous alter-ego -- Carnac the Magnificent.
Martin closes by saying "Consider this a friendly, and even cheerful, salute to Marshall Brickman.
Classy guy, Steve Martin.
That New Dimensions LP was full of delightful banjo picking. Eric’s tune No Title Yet Blues remains one of my favorites. Marshall Brickman was right up there on banjo with Eric on that recording. And he wrote iconic screenplays, which I guess was a more lucrative gig. A very talented person.
Marshall Brickman wrote several music-related humor pieces for the New Yorker. My favorite is “What, Another Legend?” from 1973, about the re-discovery of a retired blues musician named Pootie LeFleur, famous for (among other things) the creation of a new note between F and F-sharp which he named Reep and tried without success to peddle door-to-door as his “fine new note."
That was a good article. I have that vinyl record in a milk crate in the attic and back in the day spent a good deal of time listening to it and even learned a few of the tunes. If Steve thinks it is the 2nd or 3rd most influential (and I don’t disagree) records I wonder what would rank as the 1st or 2nd.
