Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs, a celebrated and highly influential banjo player, whose innovative three-fingered picking style helped to popularize the instrument, has joined that great bluegrass jam in the sky. Scruggs, who was a large presence in both the folk and country music worlds and was honored by both, died of natural causes on March 28 at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. He was 88.

A North Carolina native, Scruggs grew up in a small rural community in Cleveland County, where he was surrounded by music. His father played the fiddle and banjo, while his mother played the organ in church and several of his brothers and sisters played both banjo and guitar. He began playing the banjo as a youngster, when his parents reportedly bought him one for $10, and played before his first audience at age 6. Scruggs once wrote that “Probably no other family enjoyed music and singing more than we did. The banjo stayed in my mind most of the time, if I was playing with friends or working on the farm.”

Indeed, he was widely regarded as a master of the banjo for nearly 70 years. Scruggs, then 21, joined the “Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in late 1945 as its banjo player and stayed with the band until 1948, when he and guitarist, Lester Flatt, left to form the Foggy Mountain Boys – later known by the simple moniker Flatt and Scruggs.

“Scruggs devised a new style of three-fingered picking [enabling one to play a song’s melody and rhythm simultaneously] that created an immediate sensation in the 1940s and became one of the defining characteristics of bluegrass music,” said Wayne Martin, folklife director of the North Carolina Arts Council, which honored Scruggs with its North Carolina Heritage Award in 1996. “He brought an extraordinarily high level of creativity, precision and artistry to banjo playing and, through his long recording and touring career, carried the instrument to the forefront of American roots music. He transformed banjo playing and, in the process, transformed American popular culture.” For his part, Scruggs said at the time: “My music came up from the soil of North Carolina, and I have been blessed that people in all parts of the world enjoy it.”

Scruggs is, perhaps, best known for two songs: Paul Henning’s “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” which he, Flatt and singer Jerry Scoggins recorded in the fall of 1962 as the theme song for the popular American TV series The Beverly Hillbillies (Flatt and Scruggs appeared in several episodes of the show as family friends of the zany Clampetts); and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” his own 1969 Grammy Award-winning instrumental that can be heard during the chase sequences in the movie Bonnie and Clyde. He won a second Grammy Award for a 2001 recording of the same song that also featured Steve Martin (who has called Scruggs his inspiration) on second banjo and several other musical luminaries. His 2001 album, Earl Scruggs and Friends, (his first release in 17 years) featured musical collaborations with such diverse artists as Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, John Fogarty, Don Henley, Sting and Dwight Yoakam — revealing that his influence extended far beyond bluegrass circles. Indeed, Scruggs helped bridge both generations and genres.

Here’s a link to a video of Earl Scruggs and Steve Martin performing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown:”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMTVV5Lwaw

After parting ways with Flatt earlier in 1969, Scruggs became one of the select few bluegrass or country-western artists to embrace the anti-war movement and played “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” during the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam rally in Washington, D.C. Following his split with Flatt, he formed the Earl Scruggs Revue with his three sons – Gary, Randy and Steve; the group blended bluegrass with more contemporary music and helped give rise to country rock. Scruggs also collaborated with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on its landmark 1972 album Will The Circle Be Unbroken.

Through the years, Scruggs, who was equally at home at a folk festival or at the Grand Ole Opry, received numerous awards and honors. In addition to four Grammy Awards — the latter two for playing on an all-star recording of “Same Old Train” (1998) and “Earl’s Breakdown” with the Dirt Band (2004) — the Country Music Hall of Famer was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship and a National Medal of Arts. He was in the International Bluegrass Hall of Honor’s inaugural class of 1991 and received lifetime achievement awards from Folk Alliance and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (which runs the Grammy Awards), as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Scruggs was predeceased by his wife and manager, Louise, as well as his youngest son, Steve.