Plucking heartstrings

Why I’m proud to play the banjo

The death last week of legendary banjo player Earl Scruggs was marked by generous obituaries. He fashioned a style of playing now copied worldwide. In 2004, his instrumental ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ — theme music for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde — was chosen by the US Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry. He died at 88. So, a good innings. No doubt he’s now playing elsewhere. As they say in Nashville, ‘The good Lord likes a little pickin’ too.’

A friend wonders how I ‘defend’ playing — or, more accurately trying to play — the banjo. As if it’s a type of discriminatory behaviour now forbidden. I say that, like the violin, I find it’s an instrument capable of producing sounds both joyous and sad. Sometimes both at the same time.

No instrument plucks at my heartstrings so reliably. For me, the most affecting scene in the Oscar-laden 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke — ’67 was clearly a vintage film year — involves a banjo.