“Dueling Banjos” was at the top of the country charts on this day in 1973. The song, which was written by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith, of course was most famously featured in the movie “Deliverance,” which still frightens me.
Here is the entry at This Day in Country Music, which is quite interesting:
Eric Weissberg was at #1 on the country album chart with Dueling Banjos. The song “Dueling Banjos” was composed in 1955 by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith as a banjo instrumental called “Feudin’ Banjos”, which contained riffs from “Yankee Doodle”. The version by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell went to #2 for four weeks on the Hot 100 in 1973. The song was made famous by the 1972 film Deliverance, which also led to a successful lawsuit by the song’s composer, as it was used in the film without his permission.
One comment at YouTube posting of the clip for the movie asks the very good question of why the song had the name it did considering one of the dueling (or fueding) instruments is a guitar. Above, Weissberg performs the song with the band Deliverance in 1973.
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