STEVE MARTIN

Biography

Steve Martin was born on August 14, 1945, in Waco, Texas, and raised in Southern California. He discovered the banjo around age 15 during the early 1960s folk revival, teaching himself by slowing 33 rpm bluegrass records to half speed and picking out notes by ear. His high school friend John McEuen — later a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band — steered him toward the three-finger Scruggs-style picking that defines bluegrass banjo, and a recording of Earl Scruggs around 1962 became a defining revelation. From his earliest stand-up performances, the banjo was a signature instrument, and his comedy work in the late 1970s — including the novelty hit "King Tut" (1978) with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Grammy-winning comedy albums Let's Get Small and A Wild and Crazy Guy — wove musicianship into his public persona.

While his Hollywood career dominated the 1980s and 1990s, Martin never stopped playing privately. His re-emergence as a serious bluegrass artist accelerated in the 2000s: in 2002 he was personally invited by Earl Scruggs to play on a recording of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," which won the Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. His 2009 album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo on Rounder Records won the 2010 Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, establishing him as a credible artist beyond the celebrity novelty label. That year he began his long-running partnership with North Carolina bluegrass outfit Steep Canyon Rangers, with whom he won the 2011 IBMA Entertainer of the Year award. Subsequent albums including Rare Bird Alert (2011) and The Long-Awaited Album (2017) extended that collaboration, with guest appearances from Paul McCartney and The Chicks along the way.

Martin's most creatively ambitious music work has been his songwriting partnership with Edie Brickell, in which he composes banjo instrumentals that Brickell then sets to lyrics. Their album Love Has Come for You (2013) won the 2014 Grammy for Best American Roots Song, and together they co-wrote Bright Star, a Broadway musical set in the Blue Ridge Mountains that earned five Tony Award nominations including Best Musical in 2016. In 2010 Martin established the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass — a $50,000 annual award distributed to master banjo players including Rhiannon Giddens and Noam Pikelny — channeling his celebrity into sustaining the tradition he loves. He is widely credited with introducing bluegrass to mainstream audiences who would never have discovered it otherwise, making him one of the music form's most effective ambassadors.

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Fun Facts

• He taught himself banjo as a teenager by slowing 33 rpm bluegrass records down to 16 rpm, then retuning his banjo to match — a pre-internet transcription trick that required hours of painstaking repetition.
• His 1978 novelty single 'King Tut' — a comedy song about the traveling Tutankhamun exhibit — hit #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over one million copies, making him one of the few comedians with a genuine platinum pop hit built on comic musicianship.
• Earl Scruggs, the inventor of three-finger bluegrass banjo picking, personally invited Martin to record 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' with him in 2001 — the ultimate endorsement from the patriarch of the tradition Martin had been studying since age 17.
• In 2010 Martin established the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, a $50,000 annual unrestricted award that has distributed over half a million dollars to master banjo players over its first decade — later folded into the FreshGrass Foundation.

Musical Connections

Mentors/Influences

• Earl Scruggs - Scruggs's recording in 1962 was the revelatory moment that defined Martin's approach to bluegrass banjo; later personally invited Martin to record 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' together (Grammy win, 2002) [1962; 2001]
• John McEuen - High school friend and later founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who guided Martin toward three-finger Scruggs-style picking in his teenage years [Early 1960s]
• Pete Seeger - Seeger's instructional book was an early learning resource during the folk revival that sparked Martin's interest in banjo [Early 1960s]

Key Collaborators

• Steep Canyon Rangers - Primary touring and recording band since 2009; together won 2011 IBMA Entertainer of the Year; collaborated on Rare Bird Alert (2011), The Long-Awaited Album (2017), and extensive touring [2009–present]
• Edie Brickell - Lyricist/vocalist partnership where Martin writes banjo compositions and Brickell sets them to words; produced Grammy-winning Love Has Come for You (2013) and Broadway musical Bright Star (2016) [2013–present]
• Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Backed Martin on his novelty hit 'King Tut' (1978), billed as 'The Toot Uncommons'; John McEuen was also his early banjo mentor

Artists Influenced

• Rhiannon Giddens - Recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, an award Martin established in 2010 to support master banjo players [2010s]
• Noam Pikelny - Recipient of the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass [2010s]

External Links

• Spotify
• Wikipedia