Ronny Cox is a man who was in many ways made famous by the movie Deliverance. There is little doubt that he would have made it in music or some other life vocation without Deliverance, but it was in fact, the movie Deliverance which catapulted him into the world of film. Ronny has been in many favorites over the years, from such movies as Robocop, Total Recall, and Vision Quest, to television roles in Dexter, Apple's Way, and The Starter Wife. He has recorded numerous albums, and tours nationally, playing his music. There are interesting tid-bits I learned while doing this piece, for example, the scene in Deliverance where he plays dueling banjos took all oftwo hours to record. The movie Deliverance was filmed in sequence, an almost unheard of thing nowadays, but one of the reasons many believe the actors did so well in their parts; as the story developed, so did their characters because the characters were in fact developing along with the story lines.

Ronny has a new book out, titled Dueling Banjos: The Deliverance of Drew. The book is available in paperback, hardback, and e-reader versions. It is a captivating story of stories related to the movie Deliverance. Included are stories of how Ronny Cox was largely responsible for the author ofDeliverance being asked to no longer be on set during the initial filming of the movie. There are other well told, captivating stories such as the story of Billy Joe Redden, the 15-year-old boy at the time who played the banjo in the now infamous and iconic scene in the movie. While the 40th Anniversary Blu-ray DVD version of the movie has a mini-book that comes with it, Ronny's book carries far more detail than previously told before. The book in itself is a worthy companion to the film Deliverance. I have seen the movie many times, seen various features on the making of the movie, but the book Dueling Banjoswas a captivating, page turner of a read that I couldn't put down until completing it.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Ronny in an exclusive for The Virtual Pew and Hollywood Jesus. I enjoyed the short time we had together, and hope that others glean some information about Ronny and of course, the movie Deliverance. The interview was about much more than the movie though and in it are lessons we can all learn from and things of interest we can learn about Ronny Cox. Enjoy and hopefully you will have as much fun reading it as I did getting it.

Ronny Cox (RC): Hi Mike

Mike Furches (MF): Hi Ronny, how are you doing?

RC: I'm good, how about you?

MF: I'm doing pretty well; I guess you're staying pretty busy right now?

RC: Yeah!

MF: I have a number of questions, don't think I'll be able to get through them all, but over the years I've been a huge fan of Deliverance. One of the questions is related to music as I'm also a musician. Some of your music has intrigued me over the years. Can you tell me some about your music and the guitar you play?

RC: Well, I have one off the great guitars in the world. It is a hand made guitar by Dave Bertoncini. He is a luthier out of Tacoma Washington. He made this guitar for me. I'll drop just a little bit of names; I live here in L.A. and I have a guy who works on my guitars, and to drop just a few names, Paul McCartney picks this guitar shop as does Jackson Browne and people like that, and according to the guy who works on my guitar, he said none of those guys have a guitar as good as mine. So that's about as good as it gets.

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