Steve Martin Finally Plays "King Tut"

He's been busy in Hollywood these last three decades, and Steve Martin is now early in his first tour since the late 1970s. "I played Knoxville about 32 years ago," he said on the stage of the Tennessee Theatre Tuesday night, "so there are a lot of familiar faces here." Perhaps politely, he didn't mention the circumstances.

Back then he performed--after a show by the late singer-songwriter Steve Goodman--in a packed and extremely hot Stokely Athletic Center during an air-conditioner meltdown. It was during his "King Tut" tour, but after some comedy, he abruptly stopped talking, and settled into some long banjo solo, before abruptly leaving stage, reportedly ill. He hadn't gotten to the climax, his then-hit "King Tut."

He seemed to enjoy this week's visit a good deal more. He reportedly rarely does much exploring in cities he visits, but earlier in the day, he dropped in at Morelock Music on Gay Street. He looked around the unusual joint, and bought five electronic banjo tuners.

"I can't believe I'm playing banjo in Knoxville, Tennessee," he said. "And neither can my movie career."

He mentioned the obvious, that it's a pretty weird thing for a comedian to be playing banjo with a bluegrass band. He compared it to Jerry Seinfeld performing his own arrangements for the bassoon. He may have understated the matter. Sometimes telling jokes, twice and perhaps too often singing,

sometimes taking lead banjo, sometimes just playing rhythm, he enthralled a large and very receptive audience.

He was still undeniably Steve Martin, in his black-rimmed glasses, white suit and striped tie: the button-down nihilist who revolutionized standup in the '70s, the actor who pushed cinematic boundaries in the '80s, lately the droll New Yorker essayist, and winner of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for Humor seemed, for this peculiar moment, content to play banjo with a band on the Tennessee Theatre stage. For those who remember all that Steve Martin has been, in the last 40 years, it was hard to fully acknowledge that this is the same guy, standing there, doing nothing but play the banjo, squinting out over the audience as if trying to identify a dangerously noxious odor.

The show with Martin's band, North Carolina's Steep Canyon Rangers, was about one-third comedy, most of it having to do with the music, and very much in Martin's familiarly loony tradition--"here's a song that we have completely memorized!"--and two-thirds a sort of bluegrass fusion.

He has been hailed as "Hollywood's Ambassador to Bluegrass," as he announced. "It was between me and Arnold Schwarzenegger." Veteran bluegrass fans, unaccustomed to this large a crowd to begin with, might question whether the ecstatic reception reflected anything actually accomplished on stage. In fact, bluegrass purists might question whether most of the show was bluegrass at all. Can a band incorporate a sixth member, (and a second banjoist); indulge in these particular chord changes; mike and amplify your instruments separately; and offer no high-lonesome crooning--and still be bluegrass?

It didn't matter much Tuesday night. It was mainly a nightfull of fun.

Martin's compositions, most of them instrumental, like "The Crow," and the newer "Rare Bird Alert" are getting around so much they're almost familiar. They're pleasant to listen to, even if they lack the lonesome melancholy, transcendent devotion and occasional horror of traditional bluegrass. Most of Martin's compositions sound like soundtracks to a happy movie about getting back to nature. Cut-offs and flip-flops in a jeep in an open glade with a six-pack of Mountain Dew. But they're well done as that. Martin swapped the lead banjo with Rangers regular Graham Sharp. About the only thing Martin does not do pretty well is sing--for him, singing is more or less talking loudly. We can't expect a comedian/actor/writer/banjoist to excel at everything. Ranger guitarist Woody Platt, a big fellow who looks

like an amiable neighbor rancher in an old episode Bonanza, sang most of the lyrics, on the few songs that had them, including one from the point of view of Paul Revere's horse.

Martin's song "Jubilation Day" is one of the funnier ones, kind of a bluegrass King Tut.

His comedy came off the cuff, between songs. Some was obviously rehearsed with the Rangers, who played straight men. When Martin took a break, he asked the guys for a beer. Charles Humphrey flipped around his stand-up bass, opened a panel, and produced a bottle.

He let the Rangers do a couple on their own, including an a cappella four-part harmony gospel tune, "Sit Down," one of only a couple of traditional pieces heard during the evening.

Martin rejoined them, pronouncing, "When you learn to play instruments with that, it's gonna be fantastic!"

He and the band followed it with a tune about why atheists don't have any good music:

"Catholics dress up for Mass,

And listen to Gregorian chants.

Atheists just take a pass

And watch football in their underpants."

The closed with "Northern Island" and "Calico Train," and returned for the encore you could expect only from Steve Martin: his new grassy version of a W.H. Auden poem, "Calypso"--followed by "Orange Blossom Special." In the solo, versatile fiddler Nicky Sanders went a little mad, incorporating bits of Mozart, Gershwin, Brian Wilson, Beethoven, George Harrison, and Danny Elfman.

Martin sang parts of that finale, for better or worse, and in the final lyric, which goes "and lose these New York blues" bellowed "Knoxville blues." No one in the room seemed to mind much.

And for those of us who were disappointed to miss it 32 years ago, Tuesday night he performed "King Tut" for the first time ever in Knoxville.