Banjos hit the silver screen last week when Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon opened in U.S. theaters. The filmmaker's latest opus features two banjos provided by the Oklahoma City-based American Banjo Museum , one of which appears in a scene with fiddler Rayna Gellert , who also put together a band to play a Hoyt Ming tune for the film. Based on the 2017 nonfiction book by David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone. The film is set in Oklahoma during the 1920s and portrays the murders of members of the Osage Nation over oil rights. Gellert wrote about her experience working on the film in the latest KKRG newsletter , which I recommend subscribing to for updates on performances, workshops and other fiddle-ish news (also check out Gellert's The Squealemite ). Through a mutual connection, Gellert was contacted by the film's music supervisor Randall Poster to provide stringband music for the score.
How to learn to stop worrying and love the twang. A journey into old-time music.