Steve Martin's latest incarnation is that of a full-time banjo player. (Sun Media Files)

For so long, it seemed, Steve Martin was the wild and crazy guy, a hugely successful comedian in the 1970s, playing stadiums, dressed in a white suit, wearing bunny ears, and performing magic tricks, juggling and making balloon animals.

And yes, even playing a few songs on the banjo.

But that was more than 30 years ago, and after burning out on stand-up, Martin deftly reinvented himself as a renaissance man -- a successful comedic and serious film actor, a playwright, screenwriter, as well as the author of novellas and an autobiography.

His latest role is as a full-time musician; a bluegrass banjo player to be exact.

Martin's first full-fledged music tour -- he's actually been playing banjo for 45 years -- arrives at Roy Thomson Hall tonight in support of his first all-music album, The Crow: Songs For The Five-String Banjo, which came out earlier this year and wound up at No. 1 on the bluegrass charts, and was nominated for six bluegrass awards (he won for liner notes).

His backup band, The Steep Canyon Rangers, an established bluegrass outfit from Asheville, N.C., will accompany him.

During a conference call, the 64-year-old admitted there were nerves involved in performing live on stage solely as a musician for the first time, especially after all this time off from the road.

"Yes, I was very nervous," he said. "But that's why I did about six shows (in L.A. and New York) just to get at ease. And I think I'm finally at ease. But it did take awhile because, you know, it is very different from playing in your living room to playing on stage.

"Now I had played on stage before in my comedy acts and when I was opening for the Dirt Band. But that's a long time ago -- and I wasn't the lead. So I had to really concentrate. And, you know, the first shows I did, I'm just sitting there, just staring at the neck, you know. But now I'm much more relaxed and I feel more confident."

The main difference between playing music live and performing comedy live is the pass or fail test.

"The music world is very strict because you've got to be good," Martin said.

"When you start a song, it lasts three minutes. And a joke lasts six seconds. So in some ways it's easier and in some ways you have to almost rise higher. You know, it's complicated, which by the way, is the name of the next movie I'm in (starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, opening Christmas Day)."

"It's a very different feeling," he continued. "It's funny, when I would be doing a comedy routine I would constantly be going, 'This is working. Oh, that didn't work.' But you can actually feel in the middle of a song a connection to the audience. It's a very different feeling than doing comedy. It's hard to say why, because in comedy you're always thinking, what's next? And in music pretty much you know what's next. And it's kind of thrilling when it happens because it's new for me."

A self-taught banjo player, the Waco, Texas-born, Hollywood-raised Martin decided to get serious about music in the last five years when he wrote 10 songs.

Prior to that, old friend and bluegrass banjo master Earl Scruggs asked Martin to play on an all-star version of Foggy Mountain Breakdown, which won a 2002 Grammy for everyone involved.

"That really kicked it off, you know. I thought, 'Oh I've got to get up to speed.' And I started practicing Foggy Mountain Breakdown. And then the New Yorker asked me to host a banjo evening. And the world just started opening up, and I connected to more and more people.

"And then I started thinking about recording the songs."

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