SF 49ers fans serenaded by 'Banjo Man' Characters 'Banjo Man' never misses 49ers games at home

Stacy Samuels will be at the playoff game and claims his banjo brings good luck to the 49ers. Stacy Samuels will be at the playoff game and claims his banjo brings good luck to the 49ers. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close SF 49ers fans serenaded by 'Banjo Man' 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

The national anthem at Saturday's 49ers-Packers playoff game will be followed by the faint tinkling of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on banjo, and a Candlestick Park tradition will notch its 30th year.

Since the first football game of the 1983 season, Stacy Samuels, 62, has gone up and down the aisles, powered by propeller, ponytail and 49ers cape flying behind while plucking his five-string and punctuating it with a cheerleading cry of "Niners. We're No. 1." He has serenaded fans at 239 consecutive regular season home games, plus 23 home playoff games, plus half the preseason games, plus four 49ers Super Bowls, plus six other Super Bowls (in his cape as the 49ers' lone representative).

That's 300 games at least, playing the same two-minute song about 100 times per contest. Add them up - he may have picked out "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" more times than it has been heard in "Bonnie and Clyde" and more times than it was played by Earl Scruggs, the bluegrass legend who wrote it.

"I am still the world record holder for number of performances of the 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown,' " says Samuels, who also claims to be "the one guy still left from the Joe Montana era," and "the hardest-working guy there," including the linemen in the trenches.

'Banjo Man' stuck

"Super Niner" is his preferred nickname, but "Banjo Man" is the name that has stuck. He can be heard as soon as the parking lot opens, four hours before kickoff, as he strolls through, strumming for food. He used to also strum for a ticket to the game, but now he receives a pass from the 49ers, his only form of compensation. He also gets tips, which he has noticed have gotten a lot better with the arrival of the camera phone.

"I don't mind putting my arms around two beautiful girls and taking a picture," he says. The moment he is fully entwined with an admirer is the moment that he whispers, "Donations accepted."

It would be vulgar to discuss what he pockets at a playoff game, but it's more than the $139 face value of a ticket, and it is ancillary to his primary business, which is to sell the little hat he wears, $14 online at propellerheadhats.com. As chief flight commander for Interstellar Propeller, he has put four kids through college and bought a home in Fairfax, where he lives with his wife, Charlotte.

"Talk about a crazy business plan that I didn't know I had," says Samuels, who couldn't have forecast that his whirlybird would become a status symbol. "I'd already been selling them for 10 years before realizing I'd have a huge industry from computer people. 'Propeller head' is the industry term for geek."

Samuels does not vend inside the stadium. But 49ers games are his main avenue for advertising. As long as he can get himself on TV or the stadium video screen, the hats move, and he can keep a two-person crew busy assembling them in a low-ceilinged workroom in a two-story home in Berkeley.

"This is the propeller factory," he says, answering a door marked Interstellar Propeller on the ground floor of the rooming house, which he also owns. "Over a million and a half have flown out of here."

Famous heads

They've landed on the head of Elton John, in concert, and on the heads of former NBA players Shaquille O'Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon, while outfitted as nerds riding a bicycle built for two. They've even landed in the White House. On the wall is a Time magazine picture of President Obama's top economic advisers wearing propeller hats to enhance their thinking on the budget.

There is irony in that because corporate headquarters for Interstellar Propeller previously served as national campaign headquarters of "Nobody for President." This goes back to the mid-1970s, when Samuels was a member of the Hog Farm, Wavy Gravy's outfit that had settled on this corner of Woolsey and California streets, just south of Ashby Avenue.

"It was a commune with 20 adults and 12 or 13 kids," Samuels says with a squinty-eyed smile to suggest that he misses those days gone by. There were constant birthday parties, most prominently the one for Wavy Gravy (Hugh Romney). The clownish Woodstock emcee chose to stand apart by putting a propeller on top of a baseball hat, a modification of the traditional brimless beanie with propeller.

"It was a revolutionary idea," says Samuels, enjoying his own double entendre.

Wavy Gravy wore the first one to an Oakland A's game in 1976, and the audience reaction was generous. Samuels, who was with him, had an epiphany to "change the way America flies." The Hog Farm already had a 24-hour phone message service operating from the front porch, so it was easy to retool the work force and have hats ready for the "Nobody for President" campaign bus.

Oakland affiliation

The first appearance of "Banjo Man" was for the Golden State Warriors, where he was paid $25 a game during the 1980-81 season. That didn't last, and he has been a volunteer ever since, going through four or five custom capes as "Super Niner" and that many green-and-gold capes as "Super A."

His Oakland affiliation has caused minor friction in the stands at Candlestick, but he shakes it off. He has credentials as a native San Franciscan who used to clip coupons from Christopher Milk cartons, good for kids' admission to Kezar Stadium.

"I cried when they traded Y.A. Tittle. I was 10 years old," is one of his talking points. Another one is the talismanic charms of the banjo he carries.

He played the same instrument for 20 seasons, then retired it and picked up a new one. Almost simultaneously, the team went into decline, but nobody figured out the link until Samuels left his newer banjo on the sidewalk in Fairfax a few years ago.

It was gone for good, so he brought the old one out of retirement - and suddenly the team was in the playoffs after a 10-year drought.

"It brought back the good luck," he says.