(NOTE: You have to say “Supergenius” the way Wile E. Coyote does in Operation Rabbit, his first speaking appearance alongside Bugs Bunny, for the word to have its intended impact.)
Many years ago, while in San Francisco, Mike and I got tickets to a performance of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a play written by Steve Martin. Since seeing that performance, I’ve been a bit in awe of Martin’s range of talent and convinced of his supergenius status. I went back to watch his earlier films and saw them in a new light then sought out his essays and other films. The man has impecable comic timing, a fine grasp of the absurd, an understanding of art and music that is better than many graduate students and he can write really well. I began to suspect that he may also have been the inspiration for The Man in Black/Dread Pirate Roberts.
I cannot forgive him for reviving the Pink Panther franchise, however.
Flash forward to this past November when I visited the public library with the goal of finding some more instrumental music I could draw on as a writing soundtrack for NaNoWriMo. One of the CDs I found on the shelf was Steve Martin’s 2009 album of banjo music, The Crow. I know what you’re thinking, “Banjo music? Not likely!” and normally, I’d be right there with a “Pfft.” and crossed arms beside you.
And yet… every time one of the tracks pops up in my iTunes shuffle, I smile. Even the sad tunes sound happier when expertly plucked by Martin. All but one track on the album were composed by Martin over decades of his life (as early as the 1960s) and often as not on film sets. He pulls in favours for vocals on some tracks and accompaniment on others and the result is one of my favourite albums in recent years. Tin Roof (embedded below) is my favourite track, followed closely by the title track, The Crow, and also Hoedown at Alice’s. If you have any interest in banjo music or bluegrass, I highly recommend this album.
Here, I’ve made it easy to buy my favourite Steve Martin stuff:
I like Steve Martin a lot, he is very intelligent and has amazing range. I think he is one of those actors who will do things just for money, so he can pursue his own interests – hence his appearing in crap like Pink Panther and Cheaper by the Dozen, movies like this will give him the $$$ that he can use to make something genuinely interesting or helpful.
Not everyone gets this though: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/nyregion/02refund.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=Steve Martin&st=cse
captcha = “irritation”. Too much!
Oh, that must have been maddening for him!
I do think he uses his slapstick skills to keep his bank account full; there are several other actors like that, who move almost effortlessly between big-budget/low-brow movies and indie-films. I think these are the people who understand acting as a career and I have much more respect for them than say, Eddie Murphy who got a fat suit and suddenly only wanted to make the stupidest movies ever conceived — like he stopped thinking about the audience who loved Raw and Beverly Hills Cop.