Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs was born January 6, 1924, in the Flint Hill community of Cleveland County, North Carolina, a small community just outside of Boiling Springs, about 10 miles west of Shelby. His father, George Elam Scruggs, was a farmer and a bookkeeper who died of a protracted illness when Earl was four years old. Upon his father's death, Scruggs's mother, Georgia Lula Ruppe (called Lula), was left to take care of the farm and five children, of which Earl was the youngest. The family members all played music. The father played an open back banjo using the frailing technique, though as an adult Earl had no recollection of his father's playing. It made an impression on Scruggs, who said, "He'd sit in the rocking chair, and he'd pick some and it was just amazing. I couldn't imagine—he was the first, what I call a good banjo player." After his father's death, Scruggs seemed to take solace in playing music, and when not in school or doing farm chores, spent nearly every spare moment he had practicing. His first radio performance was at age 11 on a talent scout show. ==Development==

Scruggs is noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo-picking style now called "Scruggs style" that has become a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. Prior to Scruggs, most banjo players used the frailing or clawhammer technique, which consists of holding the fingers bent like a claw and moving the entire hand in a downward motion so that the strings are struck with the back of the middle fingernail. This motion is followed by striking the thumb on a single string. The three-finger style of playing is radically different from frailing; the hand remains stationary and only the fingers and thumb move, somewhat similar to classical guitar technique. This departure from traditional playing elevated the banjo to become more of a solo instrument—a promotion from its former role of providing background rhythm or serving as a comedian's prop—and popularized the instrument in several genres of music. Earl Scruggs did not invent three-finger banjo playing; in fact, he said the three-finger style was the most common way to play the five-string banjo in his hometown in western North Carolina. Don Reno, an eminent banjo player who also played this style and who knew Scruggs at that young age, described Scruggs's early playing as similar to that of Snuffy Jenkins. On the subject, John Hartford said, "Here's the way I feel about it. Everybody's all worried about who invented the style and it's obvious that three finger banjo pickers have been around a long time—maybe since 1840. But it's my feeling that if it wasn't for Earl Scruggs, you wouldn't be worried about who invented it." ==With Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys==

At age 15, Scruggs played in a group called The Morris Brothers for a few months, but quit to work in a factory making sewing thread in the Lily Textile Mill near his home in North Carolina. He worked there about two years, earning 40 cents an hour, until the draft restriction for World War II was lifted in 1945, at which time he returned to music, performing with "Lost John Miller and his Allied Kentuckians" on WNOX in Knoxville. The brothers split up in 1938 and Bill, a native of "the Bluegrass State" of Kentucky, formed a new group called Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. They first played on the Opry in 1939 and soon became a popular touring band featuring a vocalist named Lester Flatt. When Scruggs was 21, Monroe was looking for a banjo player for his group, because David "Stringbean" Akeman was quitting. At the time, banjo players often functioned in the band as comedians, and the instrument was often held as a prop—their clawhammer playing was almost inaudible. Monroe, along with band member Lester Flatt, auditioned several banjo players who had the same traditional playing style as Akeman. When Scruggs auditioned for them at the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, Flatt said, "I was thrilled. It was so different! I had never heard that kind of banjo picking." Scruggs joined Monroe in late 1945, earning $50 a week. With Monroe and Lester Flatt, Scruggs performed on the Grand Ole Opry and in September 1946 recorded the classic hit "Blue Moon of Kentucky"; a song that was designated by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, and later added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. The work schedule was heavy in Monroe's band. They were playing a lot of jobs in movie theaters all over the south, riding in a 1941 Chevrolet from town to town, doing up to six shows a day and not finishing up until about eleven at night. Lester Flatt said, "It wasn't anything to ride two or three days in a car. We didn't have buses like we do now, and we never had our shoes off". Scruggs said of Monroe that "Bill would never let the music go down no matter how tired we were. If a man would slack off, he would move over and get that mandolin up close on him and get him back up there". Despite the group's success, Scruggs decided the demands were too great. He was single at the time, and the brief few hours on Saturdays that he made it home, it was just to pack his suitcase at the Tulane Hotel where he lived alone, then repeat the cycle—he had done this for two years. He turned in his resignation, planning to go take care of his mother in North Carolina. Flatt had also made up his mind to leave, but he had not told anyone. He later gave his two-week notice, but, before the notice was up, the bass player Howard Watts announced that he was leaving too. Despite Monroe's pleading, they left the band. Monroe thought Flatt and Scruggs had a secret understanding, but both men denied it. Monroe did not speak to either one for 20 years thereafter, a feud well known in country music circles. ==Flatt and Scruggs==

In 1948, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs formed the duo Flatt and Scruggs and chose the name "the Foggy Mountain Boys" for their backing band. The name came from a song by the Carter Family called "Foggy Mountain Top" that the band used as a theme song at the time. In the mid-1950s, they dropped the mandolin and added a Dobro, played by Buck "Uncle Josh" Graves. Previously, Scruggs had performed something similar, called "Bluegrass Breakdown" with Bill Monroe, but Monroe had denied him songwriting credit for it. Later, Scruggs changed the song, adding a minor chord, thus creating "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". The song contains a musical oddity: Flatt plays an E major chord against Scruggs's E minor. When asked about the dissonance years later, Scruggs said he had tried to get Flatt to consistently play a minor there to no avail; he said he eventually became used to the sound and even fond of it. The song won a Grammy and became an anthem for many banjo players to attempt to master. The popularity of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" resurged years later when it was featured in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde, which introduced the song to a younger generation of fans. In 2005, the song was selected for the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry of works of unusual merit. In October 1951, the band recorded "Earl's Breakdown" which featured a technique where Scruggs would manually de-tune the second and third strings of the banjo during a song using a cam device he had made to attach to the instrument, giving the surprise effect of a downward string bend. He and his brother Horace had experimented with it when they were growing up. The original tuners Scruggs made and used are now in a museum display at the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina. In 1953, Martha White Foods sponsored the band's regular early morning radio shows on WSM in Nashville, where the duo sang the company's catchy bluegrass jingle written by Pat Twitty. About this time, country music television shows, on which Flatt and Scruggs appeared regularly, went into syndication, vastly increasing the group's exposure. Despite the group's increasing popularity and fan mail, WSM did not allow Flatt and Scruggs to become members of the Grand Ole Opry at first. According to Tennessean writer Peter Cooper, Bill Monroe was in opposition and worked behind the scenes to keep Flatt and Scruggs off the Opry to the extent of having petitions made against their membership. In 1955 Martha White Foods' CEO Cohen E. Williams intervened by threatening to pull all of his advertising from WSM unless the band appeared on the Opry in the segment sponsored by his company. On September 24, 1962, the duo recorded "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" for the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. Sung by Jerry Scoggins, the theme song became an immediate country music hit and was played at the beginning and end of each episode of the series. The song went to number one on the Billboard country chart, a first for any bluegrass recording. The song spent 20 weeks on that chart; it also reached number 44 on Billboard's pop chart. The television show was also a huge hit, broadcast in 76 countries around the world. Fleck said, "I couldn't breathe or think; I was completely mesmerized." He said it awakened a deeply embedded predisposition that "was just in there" to learn how to play the banjo. By the end of the 1960s, Scruggs was getting bored with repetition of the classic bluegrass fare. Even the success of the Bonnie and Clyde album was not enough to prevent their breakup in 1969. After the split, Flatt formed a traditional bluegrass group with Curly Seckler and Marty Stuart called The Nashville Grass, and Scruggs formed the Earl Scruggs Revue with his sons. Neither Flatt nor Scruggs spoke to each other for the next ten years—until 1979 when Flatt was in the hospital. Scruggs made an unannounced visit to his bedside. The two men talked for more than an hour. Even though Flatt's voice was barely above a whisper, he spoke of a reunion. Scruggs answered yes, but told Flatt they would talk when he was better. Flatt said, "It came as quite a surprise and made me feel good." However, Flatt never recovered and died May 11, 1979. Historian Barry Willis, speaking of the meeting, said "Earl gave Lester his flowers while he was still living." ==Earl Scruggs Revue==

In early 1969, Scruggs formed the Earl Scruggs Revue, consisting of two of his sons, Randy (guitar) and Gary (bass) and later Vassar Clements (fiddle), Josh Graves (Dobro) and Scruggs's youngest son, Steve (drums). On November 15, 1969, Scruggs performed live with the newly formed group on an open-air stage in Washington, D.C. at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. Scruggs was one of the few bluegrass or country artists to give support to the anti-war movement. The Earl Scruggs Revue gained popularity on college campuses, live shows and festivals and appeared on the bill with acts like Steppenwolf, The Byrds and James Taylor. This collaboration sparked enthusiasm by the latter to make the album Will the Circle be Unbroken. Earl and Louise Scruggs made phone calls to eminent country stars like Roy Acuff and "Mother" Maybelle Carter to get them to participate in this project to bring a unique combination of older players with young ones. The album became a classic, and was selected for the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry of works of unusual merit. It includes the song "Passin' Thru", written by Johnny Cash and Randy Scruggs. He also released a live album The Three Pickers with Doc Watson and Ricky Skaggs, recorded in Winston-Salem in December 2002. ==Awards and honors==

• In 1989, Scruggs was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship given by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. • Flatt and Scruggs were inducted together into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985. • Scruggs was an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1991 and into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009. • In 1992, he was one of 13 recipients to be awarded the National Medal of Arts. The award is authorized by Congress for outstanding contributions to the arts in the United States and presented by the President of the United States. • Flatt and Scruggs won a Grammy Award in 1968 for Scruggs's instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". Scruggs won a second Grammy in 2001 for the same song featuring artists Steve Martin, Vince Gill, Albert Lee, Paul Shaffer, Leon Russell, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Glen Duncan and Scruggs's two oldest sons, Randy and Gary. • That same year, he and Flatt were ranked number 24 on ''CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music''. • In 2005, Scruggs was awarded an honorary doctorate from Boston's Berklee College of Music. • In January 1973, a tribute concert honoring Scruggs was held in Manhattan, Kansas featuring artists Joan Baez, David Bromberg, The Byrds, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Doc and Merle Watson. The concert was filmed and turned into the 1975 documentary film called Banjoman. It premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center, attended by Tennessee senators Bill Brock and Howard Baker, Ethel Kennedy, and Maria Shriver. Scruggs attended the event in a wheelchair, recuperating from a crash of his private plane. • The Coen brothers made a reference to The Foggy Mountain Boys in the 2000 film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, by naming the movie band "The Soggy Bottom Boys" • On September 13, 2006, Scruggs was honored at Turner Field in Atlanta as part of the pre-game show for an Atlanta Braves home game. Organizers won a listing in "The Guinness Book of World Records" for the most banjo players (239) playing one tune together (Scruggs's "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"). The pickers formed two groups, one on each side of home plate, and a video tribute to Scruggs's life was shown. • Four works by Scruggs have been placed in the Grammy Hall of Fame: "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" (single, inducted 1999); Foggy Mountain Jamboree, (album, inducted 2012); Foggy Mountain Banjo, (album, inducted 2013); and Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" (single, inducted 1998) on which Scruggs performed. The award was established by The Recording Academy in 1973 to honor works at least 25 years old that have lasting qualitative or historical significance. • The Google Doodle of January 11, 2019, paid homage to Scruggs by featuring a "close-up" animated demonstration of the "Scruggs style". ==Banjos==

In the late 1950s Scruggs met with Bill Nelson, one of the owners of the Vega Musical Instrument Company in Boston, to sign a contract to design and endorse a new banjo to be called "The Earl Scruggs Model". There would be four Scruggs models in the top-of-the-line banjos they produced. It was the first time a prominent bluegrass banjo player had played any brand other than a Gibson. This banjo had been changed over its long existence and the only remaining original parts were the rim, the tone ring and the resonator (the wooden back of the instrument). Scruggs's actual 1934 model was previously owned by a series of influential players beginning with Snuffy Jenkins, who bought it for $37.50 at a pawn shop in South Carolina. When Scruggs acquired it, the instrument was in poor condition and he sent it to the Gibson Company for refurbishing, including a new fingerboard, pearl inlays, and a more slender neck. During this time Scruggs used his Gibson RB-3 for some of the Mercury recording sessions. Banjo enthusiasts have located the shipping records from Gibson to determine the exact dates the Granada Mastertone was missing on certain recordings. A ceremony to celebrate the gift was attended by a host of bluegrass, Americana, and country music stars. ==Louise Scruggs==

On December 14, 1946, 19-year-old Anne Louise Certain attended the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. She went backstage after the performance to meet some of the performers, including Scruggs, who had been with Bill Monroe's band about a year at that time. Scruggs and Certain began dating and fell in love. They were married about a year and a half later in April 1948. She recruited noted artist Thomas B. Allen, who had done covers for The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, to create cover illustrations for 17 of the group's albums. She helped market the group to younger audiences at college campuses and arranged a live album to be recorded at Carnegie Hall. Earl Scruggs said, "What talent I had never would have peaked without her. She helped shape music up as a business, instead of just people out picking and grinning." on February 2, 2006, at age 78, six years before her husband. ==Personal life==

In 1955, Scruggs received word that his mother, Lula, had suffered a stroke and heart attack in North Carolina. The only flight available from Nashville involved such a series of connecting cities that it was not feasible to fly. Scruggs and his wife, with sons Gary and Randy, decided to drive all night from Nashville to see her when they were involved in an automobile accident just east of Knoxville about 3 a.m. October 2. Their car was hit by a drunk driver, a Fort Campbell soldier who had pulled out from a side road into their path, then fled the scene after the collision. The children were not hurt, but Earl suffered a fractured pelvis and dislocations of both hips, which would plague him for years, and Louise had been thrown into the windshield, receiving multiple lacerations. He returned to music in January 1956, about four months after the injury, but after working a week or so, one of the hips collapsed, and he returned to the hospital for a metal hip to be implanted. The first metal hip lasted for some 40 years, but eventually failed, requiring a total hip replacement in October 1996, when he was age 72. While still in the recovery room after this hip operation, Scruggs suffered a heart attack; he was returned to the operating room later the same day for quintuple coronary bypass surgery. Despite the dire circumstances, he recovered and returned to his musical career. Scruggs was involved in a solo plane crash in October 1975. He was flying his 1974 Cessna Skyhawk II aircraft home to Nashville around midnight from a performance of the Earl Scruggs Revue in Murray, Kentucky. On his landing approach he was enveloped in dense fog and overshot the runway at Cornelia Fort Airpark in Nashville and the plane flipped over. The automatic crash alert system in the plane did not function, and Scruggs remained without help for five hours. He crawled about 150 feet from the wreckage with a broken ankle, broken nose, and facial lacerations, afraid that the plane might catch fire. His family was driving home from the same concert and was unaware of the crash, but his niece became worried when he did not arrive. She called police at about 4 a.m., and they went to the airport, where they heard Scruggs's cries for help from a field near the runway. Middle son Randy Scruggs, guitarist and music producer, died after a short illness on April 17, 2018, at the age of 64. Eldest son Gary Scruggs, also a musician, songwriter and music producer, died December 1, 2021, at age 72. Every January for many years, Scruggs's birthday was celebrated by a party at his home on Franklin Road in Nashville. After a buffet dinner, guests would gather in the living room for an informal "pickin' party" where some of country music's best known stars would sing and play with no one around but family and close friends. At age 88, Scruggs died from natural causes on the morning of March 28, 2012, in a Nashville hospital. His funeral was held on Sunday, April 1, 2012, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, and was open to the public. He was buried at Spring Hill Cemetery in a private service. ==The Earl Scruggs Center==

The Earl Scruggs Center opened January 11, 2014—a $5.5 million, 100,000 square foot facility located in the court square of Shelby, North Carolina, at the renovated county courthouse. It showcases the musical contributions of Scruggs, the most eminent ambassador of the music of that region, and features a museum and a life-sized statue of Scruggs at a young age. It serves as an educational center providing classes and field trips for students. The opening was celebrated by a sold-out concert by Vince Gill, Travis Tritt, Sam Bush, and others. At the concert, three dozen noted bluegrass artists, including Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, The Earls of Leicester, Del McCoury, Sierra Hull and Jeff Hanna performed until nearly midnight. ==Selected discography==

Early singles ; Mercury Records Singles • 1949: God Loves His Children / I'm Going to Make Heaven My Home • 1949: We'll Meet Again Sweetheart / My Cabin in Caroline • 1949: Baby Blue Eyes / Bouquet in Heaven • 1949: Down the Road / Why Don't You Tell Me So • 1950: I'll Never Shed Another Tear / I'm Going to Be in Heaven Sometime • 1950: No Mother or Dad / Foggy Mountain Breakdown • 1950: Is It Too Late Now / So Happy I'll Be • 1950: My Little Girl in Tennessee / I'll Never Love Another • 1951: Cora Is Gone / That Little Old Country Church House • 1951: Pain in My Heart / Take Me in a Lifeboat • 1951: Doin' My Time / Farewell Blues • 1951: Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms / I'll Just Pretend ; Columbia Records Singles • 1951: Come Back Darling / I'm Waiting to Hear You Call Me Darling • 1951: I'm Head over Heels in Love / We Can't Be Darlings Anymore • 1951: Jimmie Brown the Newsboy / Somehow Tonight • 1951: Don't Get Above Your Raising / I've Lost You • 1951: 'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered / Earl's Breakdown • 1952: Get in Line Brother / Brother I'm Getting Ready to Go • 1952: Old Home Town / I'll Stay Around • 1952: Over the Hills to the Poorhouse • 1952: I'm Gonna Settle Down / I'm Lonesome and Blue ; Mercury Records Singles • 1952: Pike County Breakdown / Old Salty Dog Blues • 1952: Preachin' Prayin' Singin' / Will the Roses Bloom • 1953: Back to the Cross / God Loves His Children ; Okeh Records Singles • 1953: Reunion in Heaven / Pray for the Boys ; Columbia Records Singles • 1953: Why Did You Wander / Thinking about You • 1953: If I Should Wander Back Tonight / Dear Old Dixie • 1953: I'm Working on a Road / He Took Your Place • 1953: I'll Go Stepping Too / Foggy Mountain Chimes • 1954: Mother Prays Loud in Her Sleep / Be Ready for Tomorrow May Never Come • 1954: I'd Rather Be Alone / Someone Took My Place with You • 1954: You're Not a Drop in the Bucket / Foggy Mountain Special • 1954: 'Till the End of the World Rolls 'Round / Don't This Road Look Rough and Rocky • 1955: You Can Feel It in Your Soul / Old Fashioned Preacher • 1955: Before I Met You / I'm Gonna Sleep with One Eye Open • 1955: Gone Home / Bubbling in My Soul • 1956: Randy Lynn Rag / On My Mind • 1956: Joy Bells / Give Mother My Crown • 1956: What's Good for You / No Doubt about It • 1957: Six White Horses / Shucking' the Corn • 1957: Give Me the Flowers While I'm Living / Is There Room for Me • 1957: Don't Let Your Deal Go Down / Let Those Brown Eyes Smile at Me • 1957: I Won't Care / I Won't Be Hangin' Around • 1958: Big Black Train / Crying Alone • 1958: Heaven / Building on Sand • 1958: I Don't Care Anymore / Mama's and Daddy's Little Girl • 1959: A Million Years in Glory / Jesus Savior Pilot Me • 1959: Cabin on the Hill / Someone You Have Forgotten • 1959: Crying My Heart Out over You / Foggy Mountain Rock • 1960: The Great Historical Bum / All I Want Is You • 1960: Polka on a Banjo / Shucking the Corn (Remake) • 1960: I Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow / If I Should Wander Back Tonight • 1961: Where Will I Shelter My Sheep / Go Home • 1961: Jimmie Brown the Newsboy / Mother Prays Loud in My Sleep? • 1962: Cold Cold Lovin' / Just Ain't • 1962: Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles / The Legend of the Johnson • 1962: The Ballad of Jed Clampett / Coal Loadin' Johnny • 1963: Pearl Pearl Pearl / Hard Travelin' • 1964: My Saro Jane / You Are My Flower • 1964: Petticoat Junction / Have You Seen My Dear Companion • 1964: Workin' It Out / Fireball • 1964: Little Birdie / Sally Don't You Grieve • 1965: Father's Table Grace / I Still Miss Someone • 1965: Go Home / Ballad of Jed Clampett • 1965: Gonna Have Myself a Ball / Rock Salt and Nails • 1965: Memphis / Foggy Mountain Breakdown • 1966: Green Acres / I Had a Dream (With June Carter) • 1966: Colours / For Lovin' Me • 1966: The Last Thing on My Mind / Mama You Been on My Mind • 1967: It Was Only the Wind / Why Can't I Find Myself with You • 1967: Roust-A-Bout / Nashville Cats • 1967: The Last Train to Clarksville / California up Tight Band • 1967: Theme from Bonnie and Clyde (Foggy Mountain Breakdown) / My Cabin in Caroline • 1967: Down in the Flood / Foggy Mountain Breakdown (Remake) • 1968: Like a Rolling Stone / I'd Like to Say a Word for Texas • 1968: I'll Be Your Baby Tonight / Universal Soldier • 1969: Foggy Mountain Breakdown / Like a Rolling Stone • 1969: Universal Soldier / Down in the Flood • 1969: Maggie's Farm / Tonight Will Be Fine Later singles Guest singles Music videos Albums ==DVDs==

Earl Scruggs • Earl Scruggs—His Family and Friends (2005) • : (Recorded 1969. Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Bill Monroe, Joan Baez et al.) • Private Sessions (2005) • The Bluegrass Legend (2006) ===Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson and Ricky Skaggs=== • The Three Pickers (2003) Flatt and Scruggs • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 1 (2007) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 2 (2007) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 3 (2007) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 4 (2007) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 5 (2008) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 6 (2008) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 7 (2009) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 8 (2009) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 9 (2010) • The Best of Flatt and Scruggs TV Show Vol. 10 (2010) ==References==