Eric Weissberg

Biography

Eric Weissberg attended The Little Red Schoolhouse in New York's Greenwich Village and graduated from the The High School of Music & Art in New York City. He went on to the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Juilliard School of Music. He joined an early version of the Greenbriar Boys (1958–59), but left before they made any recordings. He joined The Tarriers, replacing Erik Darling. At the time, the Tarriers had had a hit with "Banana Boat Song"; Harry Belafonte's version, released soon afterward, became a bigger hit.

Weissberg was taken on as a string-bass player, but the group soon made use of his multi-instrumental talents as banjo player, fiddler, guitarist, mandolin player, and singer. He started performing with the Tarriers while still a student at Juilliard. His first album with The Tarriers, Tell The World About This (1960), has a much rougher feel than the smoothly produced sound of The Weavers or The Kingston Trio.

In 1964 he had one-year's service with the National Guard, which he had earlier joined. After his return, the Tarriers re-formed. In 1965 the group accompanied Judy Collins on a tour of Poland and Russia, but disbanded soon after. Collins was sufficiently impressed with his musicianship to use Weissberg as a session musician on Fifth Album (1965) and several later albums.

Commercially, interest in acoustic folk groups was waning. Weissberg developed a career as a session musician, playing on albums by The Clancy Brothers, Doc Watson, Melanie, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Loudon Wainwright III, Talking Heads, Tom Paxton, Jim Croce, Art Garfunkel, John Denver, Ronnie Gilbert and others.

He is well known for playing the banjo solo in "Dueling Banjos", used as the theme in the film Deliverance (1972), produced by Joe Boyd and directed by John Boorman. It was released later as a single and became a hit: played on Top 40, AOR, and country stations alike. It reached the Top Ten and was hit #1 in the US and Canada.

Weissberg released a related album, called Dueling Banjos: From the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack 'Deliverance' (1973), which also became a hit. The album was made up mostly of tracks which Weissberg had recorded on New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass (1963), with Marshall Brickman and Clarence White. (Also a screenwriter, Brickman later received an Oscar for Annie Hall.) They removed two tracks from the 1963 album and added the track for "Dueling Banjos," releasing it under the new name. One of the original 1963 tracks on the new album, "Shuckin' The Corn," was later sampled by Beastie Boys on the track "5-Piece Chicken Dinner" from their album Paul's Boutique.

Warner Brothers was sued by Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, the composer of "Feudin' Banjos", which he had written and recorded in 1955. It was renamed as "Dueling Banjos" in the movie. He won a "substantial settlement," which included appended film credit for the song and a portion of royalties.

Continuing to play folk festivals, Weissberg is nearly as well known in that venue for his dobro guitar as for his bluegrass banjo playing. He has also recorded with jazz musicians Herbie Mann and Bob James. In 1998, he joined Richard Thompson and dozens of other folk musicians on Nanci Griffith's album, Other Voices Too.

He often tours with Tom Paxton. They frequently play a variant of "Dueling Banjos" in the set, in addition to Paxton's material.

On February 12, 2009, Weissberg performed at the Riverside Church in New York City with the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College orchestra and chorus, along with the Riverside Inspirational Choir and NYC Labor Choir, to honor President Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Directed by Maurice Peress, they performed Earl Robinson's The Lonesome Train: A Music Legend for Actors, Folk Singers, Choirs, and Orchestra, in which Weissberg played solo banjo.

Session recordings