The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia jams with Steve Martin and his banjo. Martin said he fell in love with the music played by the pioneers of bluegrass -- Flatt and Scruggs, Pete Seeger and the Dillards who appeared on "The Andy Griffith Show."

Martin grew up during the 1950s and '60s in California's Orange County and worked at Disneyland. He said he remembered the first time he heard the banjo's sound. "I was about 15 years old," he said. "There was a folk music craze led by the Kingston Trio and Pete Seeger and the banjo was introduced in that music and it quickly led me to bluegrass music."

With some help from high school friend John McEuen, who eventually became part of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Martin taught himself how to play. "I would tune my banjo down and I'd pick out the songs note by note. [I] learned how to play that way," he said. "I persevered. ... And I kind of worked out my own style of playing."

He mastered both styles of banjo -- the three-finger style made famous by his Scruggs, his idol, and the clawhammer also known as "frailing" -- and quietly became a devoted musician.

"I played a little bit on stage when I was a standup comedian," Steve Martin told ABC News. "The reason I played it on stage is because my act was so crazy I thought it's probably good to show the audience I can do something that looks hard, because this act looks like I'm just making it up. I really wasn't. I worked very hard on it."

"The bluegrass community is very, can be very strict," Steve Martin told ABC News. "I didn't know if I'd be welcomed into the bluegrass community or not but I think they judge you very fairly. ... I felt really welcome."

Martin performs on stage in this undated photograph from his collection. He released his first music album, "The Crow," in 2009 and it won a Grammy in 2010. His second, a collaboration with the Steep Canyon Rangers, was released in March.