HOWZAT

The result is a collection of rollicking instrumentals and vocal numbers featuring guest singers, including a duet by Dolly Parton and Vince Gill. There is one “humorous” song, Late for School, and it is intended as a compliment to observe that it seems not only unnecessary and out of place, but the weakest song here.

It wasn’t until the 1940s that the banjo — primarily used as a comedy instrument in vaudeville — began to be taken seriously, thanks to Scruggs. “In fact, Earl told me a story about when Uncle Dave Macon [the banjo’s first star in the prewar period], who was a great player and comedian, first saw Earl in the 1940s and said, ‘Well, he’s a good banjo player, but he ain’t a damn bit funny.’ It was Earl who really divorced the banjo from its vaudeville roots and started making some really serious music.”

It seems inevitable that Martin’s involvement will bring bluegrass music to a wider audience, though that’s not his principal aim. “It kind of turns out that way, but it’s not my mission, it’s just an accident. But the truth is, if it happens, I’d be very proud of it because there’s so much great music. I actually think bluegrass music is self-limiting. It’s only going to reach just so many people. Sort of like jazz. But they just had a bluegrass festival in San Francisco, and they had, I think, 500,000 people there.” He pauses before adding, with perfect timing: “It was free.”

He’s equally aware that, because of his stardom, there will be those who doubt his passion, or aptitude, for the banjo, but he reports that audiences have been generous towards him so far. The bluegrass-savvy fans at the Ryman certainly seem impressed, and give him a standing ovation — although not before he’s introduced the final song with the words: “This song usually gets a standing ovation.” Film fans need not worry that he has given up acting; he has just finished It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin and is working on a new novel, set in the art world: a world he knows well, as a serious collector. He is, it seems reasonable to suggest, something of a Renaissance man. But Steve Martin is quick to disagree. “No, I'm not,” he asserts. “That would make me 500 years old.”

Steve Martin appears at the Festival Hall, SE1, on November 9; The Crow is out now on Rounder Records

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