billy redden was the boy playing the banjo in deliverance.
billy redden was the boy playing the banjo in deliverance.
who is the boy playing the banjo in deliverance?
billy redden
in "deliverance," a scene depicts billy redden playing it opposite ronny cox, who joins him on guitar. redden plays "lonnie," a mentally challenged and inbred, but extremely gifted, banjo player. redden could not actually play the banjo and the director thought his hand movements looked unconvincing. a local musician, mike addis, was brought in to depict the movement of the boy's left hand. addis hid behind redden, with his left arm in redden's shirt sleeve. careful camera angles kept addis out of frame and completed the illusion, though anyone familiar with bluegrass banjo playing can see that the left-hand movements do not match up with the music produced, and that the banjo being used (an open-back instrument) could never produce the music one hears (clearly from a resonator banjo). the music itself was dubbed in from the recording made by weissberg and mandell and was not played by the actors themselves.
dueling banjos
the episode's title and homer's attire are references to colonel tom parker, singer elvis presley's manager. films playing at the springfield googolplex movie theater at the beginning of the episode include "honey, i hit a school bus" (a parody of "honey, i shrunk the kids"), "look who's oinking" (a parody of "look who's talking"), and a film called "ernest vs. the pope" which stars the fictional character ernest p. worrell. during his long drive to the beer 'n' brawl, homer passes a boy playing a banjo on a porch, a reference to the "dueling banjos" sequence in the film "deliverance". the same boy appears later at the recording studio waiting in line with his banjo to record a cd. william irwin writes in his book "philosophy and the interpretation of pop culture" that this "burst of banjo" must convey a message even if the viewers do not "get" the reference to "deliverance": "thanks to prevailing connotations of banjo music, viewers who do not recognize the banjo tune as the theme from "deliverance" will not laugh, but the mere "sound" of banjo tells the audience that homer has entered a backward, redneck area."
colonel homer