In Steve Martin’s hands, the banjo blends bluegrass and comedy

By John Katsilometes

Monday, May 2, 2011 | 7:19 p.m.

Long gone is the arrow through the head, the bunny ears, the balloon animals and the rope tricks.

But the banjo, that remains. So do those vintage Steve Martin moves and mannerisms.

At the onset of his show Saturday night at the Mirage, the great comic actor strode onstage to raucous applause. He stopped short after a few steps and curled his hands to his shrugged shoulders.

Martin need not say anything, as the moment screamed, “For ME?”

Yep, and you had to laugh.

As the applause ebbed, he finally said, “Now I wish we’d practiced.”

It was Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers. The Rangers are a fantastic bluegrass band, indeed. But they would not be headlining at the Mirage if it were not for Martin’s involvement as ace banjoist and, as it happily happened, willful stand-up comic.

Comics inspired by Martin have taken note of this theater tour, hearing through the comedic network that Martin was using material in the show. The question was, how much?

And Martin made it clear early that he was not going to merely play. He was going to be playful.

“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to play bluegrass at the Mirage hotel-casino,” he drolly confided. “I feel I am now one step closer to realizing that dream.”

It had been 32 years since Martin last played Las Vegas, an infamous booking at the Riviera that served as his final stand-up show. He tells of the moment in “Born Standing Up,” looking out at empty seats, his stand-up act having largely flamed out after a remarkable run in the late 1970s.

But Martin’s stage act grew too large, too fast. The nuances that played well in comedy clubs, such as trying to play the banjo as he formed a new chord by pushing his nose to the frets, were lost on arena audiences. By the time he returned to clubs and showrooms, he’d lost the passion for the art form.

So Martin went off to make movies, many of them great (“The Jerk” is filled with classic scenes), others regretful (“The Pink Panther” franchise should have been left for Peter Sellers’ legacy). An accomplished banjo player for at least 40 years, he more recently embraced the Steep Canyon Rangers, whom he met at a house party but says, “That’s not a good Hollywood story, so we say we all met in rehab.”

The band’s first CD collaboration with Martin, “Rare Bird Alert,” is a phrase Martin picked up when filming the movie “Big Year” with Owen Wilson and Jack Black. The film is about competitive bird watching, and “rare bird alert” is a call used by excited bird watchers.

Of the new release, Martin said, “It went to No. 1 on the bluegrass charts (and No. 3 on the Billboard pop charts), and will do even better, because next week, I am going to die of a Vicodin overdose.”

Dressed in matching charcoal-colored suits, the Steep Canyon Rangers are very appealing onstage, owing to a self-effacing charm as Martin handles the smart-funny narrative. How great are the Rangers as musicians? Check with a bluegrass fan -- and there were many in Saturday night’s packed house who enthused just as happily at the fiddle work of Nicky Sanders as any joke made by Martin.

The band, also made up of Mike Guggino (mandolin/vocals), Charles Humphrey III (bass/vocals), Woody Platt (guitar/lead vocals) and Graham Sharp (banjo/vocals) certainly benefits from Martin’s positioning as frontman, but as he somewhat convincingly conveyed, “I don’t consider them my band. They consider me their celebrity.”

Early in the show, Martin conceded that his inclusion in the band was something of an oddity and thanked the audience for giving the show its time and money (tickets ran from $70 to $90). “I know, this must seem like, ‘Hey, I see Jerry Seinfeld is playing original music on the bassoon!’ ” Martin said. “We must go! I understand he smokes it!”

But Martin’s choice of instrument and genre -- banjo and bluegrass -- lends itself to laughter. It would be far more difficult to mesh comedy and, say, the sitar.

Martin does take the instrument seriously. Sometimes.

“People ask me, ‘Why so many banjos, Steve?’ ” Martin said, referring to the quartet of stringed instruments awaiting him onstage. “Well, it’s just one big ego trip.”

He read a set list from an iPad placed at the base of his microphone. He asked the band what it used before he joined them in performances, and they informed him it was just a pen and a notebook.

“Well, this is an $800 set list,” he mocked, “because my audience demands it!” Then he joked, “This is not really an iPad. It’s a very early iPhone.”

Martin also gazed around the audience, seeming to seek responses from the faces up front. At one point, he called to a guy near the front and said, “You look like Harrison Ford! But you’re not!”

Martin joked a lot about the music, too. He said, “We’re going to play a new song now, and I know what you’re saying: ‘Please don’t! Play your hits!’ Well, we don’t have any hits. But I’ll make you a deal. If you make this song a hit, we’ll play it again.”

Of the band playing original music, he remarked, “That separates us from other bluegrass bands who play their own original music.”

A highlight from the Martin collection was, “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs,” in which he lyrically notes: Christians have their hymns and pages/Hava Nagila's for the Jews. Baptists have the rock of ages/Atheists just sing the blues.” He wrote a sweet song with Gary Scruggs, the son of one of the great banjoists, Earl Scruggs, “Daddy Played the Banjo,” a tune about a boy just 5 years old learning the instrument by listening to his father’s playing.

Near the end, the band performed a wild version of “Orange Blossom Special,” which is sort of the “Stairway to Heaven” of bluegrass tunes. Then, at the end of the encore, it was “King Tut.” Martin had promised to play that song to end the show and threw in a few of the old “Tut” moves from the song’s late ’70s heyday.

If you can have nostalgia about a parody song, it is “King Tut,” a brilliant blend of satire and bluegrass. Not many can make that Tut-Rangers combination work, but the onetime wild and crazy guy can. As the audience stood and roared, it was clear that they could have stayed a lot longer.

Let’s not make it 32 years between visits, eh?

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow "Kats With the Dish" at twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.