By Ed Silverman
What would you say if someone offered you a chance to see Jerry Seinfeld perform songs he wrote especially for the bassoon? Would you consider such a concert to be a must-see event? Or blow it off as the misguided musings of a self-important comedian?
Well, stranger things do happen. Consider that Steve Martin is touring with his banjo — yes, a banjo — and a bunch of his own songs backed by a genuine, down-home bluegrass band from North Carolina. And his show is both a hoot and a hootenanny.
Taking the stage at Morristown’s Mayo Performing Arts Center on June 28, Martin peppered the two-hour performance with his delightfully goofy sense of humor, but also had the sold-out crowd clapping along to songs that sounded as if they came from a West Virginia holler, not the hills of Hollywood.
While it may be tempting to dismiss Martin as an Earl Scruggs wannabe, the silver-haired jokester knows his way around the instrument. And thanks to the Steep Canyon Rangers, his five-piece backing band, Martin turned in a display that might have made Bill Monroe just a little envious.
Despite a natural tendency toward silliness between songs, Martin has found yet another way to please the fannies in the seats. He and his ensemble delivered a consistently strong set, playing a mix of songs from the two bluegrass albums Martin has recorded, including the recently released Rare Bird Alert, which was their first collaboration.
They paced themselves nicely, veering from the rollicking title song of the new album to a sweet ballad about fatherhood called Daddy Played the Banjo, which was sung by Steep Canyon Rangers guitarist Woody Platt.
But this was a Steve Martin show, after all, and he had no intention of disappointing anyone. From the moment he stepped on stage, he was wisecracking. To start things off, he told the audience the band would begin the show by playing – what else? – its first song. And since there was no intermission, Martin decided they had to drop one song, which was entitled The Water That Flows. Naturally, that got everyone thinking about the bathroom.
This between-song banter never let up. At one point, he recounted driving to the concert and seeing a highway billboard that had “Sold Out” stamped in huge letters across his face. You could see the punch line coming, but you still had to laugh when he reacted by thinking “how rude” it was to describe him that way. Later, he spent some time fidgeting with an electronic tuner and recounting its marvels, such as allowing him to get his email while on stage.
His charm, of course, is in his delivery, not just what he has to say. And like a vaudevillian act, Martin has also managed to shape the band into his partners in crime. Mostly, they played his loyal straight men, shrugging and mugging as funny lines rolled off his tongue. But in one memorable exchange, Martin wished out loud for a beer, prompting stand-up bassist Charles Humphrey to twirl his instrument around and open a special compartment in back to pull out a bottle.
There were also some numbers that displayed his penchant for the ridiculous. In particular, Atheists Don’t Have No Songs, an old-time gospel-like tune that laments how different religions may have their hymns and chants, but not atheists – at least, not until now.
And Martin’s propensity toward being sharp-tongued was clearly evident in Jubilation Day, which was about his sheer joy that a lover has left for good. “I’m walkin’ away, my best friends all had warned me. I’m walkin’ away, even your mom said you were nuts. In my dreams, you wore a red cape and a pitchfork. I’m walkin’ away. Jubilation Day.” As he noted, bad poetry can make pretty good country songs.
Just the same, Martin proved he has not only mastered the banjo, but he accomplished something perhaps few others could do – he widened the audience for bluegrass and offered the genre the sort of exposure it might not receive otherwise. He may be a beloved funny man, but Martin takes the banjo seriously and is rightfully proud of his accomplishments, even as he uses this as fodder for his routine shtick of making fun of his own big-headedness.
Toward the end of the evening, Martin recalled his early love for Flatt & Scruggs, and wanted to honor them, but not so much that he would honor them and play one of their songs. Why? “I don’t want to have to pay royalties,” he guffawed. Nonetheless, the encore was a blazing version of Orange Blossom Special, a bluegrass standard that has been recorded by everyone from Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys and The Stanley Brothers to Johnny Cash and Flatt & Scruggs. But Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers managed to place their own signature on the tune, especially thanks to fiddler Nicky Sanders, who offered a slightly deranged performance and went off on several musical tangents.
By the time they were done, the audience was standing and letting out whoops. The comedy club laughter had been replaced by the rhythmic clapping and shrieks of joy one might find at a jamboree. Steve Martin and his fans may have a symbiotic need for goofy one-liners, but this was no Hee-Haw. Better to file them under honest-to-goodness hoedown.
Ed Silverman, a former reporter at The Star-Ledger, now runs a web site called Pharmalot, and has previously written about music for Living Blues, Jazziz and Dirty Linen.
