Awww crap - RIP Earl Scruggs
From
Nashville.com:
BREAKING NEWS - EARL SCRUGGS DIES AT 88
We are saddened to report that legendary Country Music Hall of Famer Earl Scruggs has passed away of natural causes here in Nashville at the age of 88.
Earl Scruggs made his mark in music by perfecting and popularizing a three finger banjo-picking style that became a cornerstone characteristic of Bluegrass. Previously, banjo players utilized a “clawhammer” finger style. Scruggs’ method immediately advanced the banjo from a rhythm to a lead instrument.
All of us at Nashville.com wish to convey our deepest condolences to the Scruggs Family.
Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) wrote a wonderful article in the
New Yorker two months ago:
The Master from Flint Hill: Earl Scruggs
Some nights he had the stars of North Carolina shooting from his fingertips. Before him, no one had ever played the banjo like he did. After him, everyone played the banjo like he did, or at least tried. In 1945, when he first stood on the stage at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and played banjo the way no one had ever heard before, the audience responded with shouts, whoops, and ovations. He performed tunes he wrote as well as songs they knew, with clarity and speed like no one could imagine, except him. When the singer came to the end of a phrase, he filled the theatre with sparkling runs of notes that became a signature for all bluegrass music since. He wore a suit and Stetson hat, and when he played he smiled at the audience like what he was doing was effortless. There aren’t many earthquakes in Tennessee, but that night there was.
As boys in the little community of Flint Hill, near Shelby, North Carolina, Earl and his brother Horace would take their banjo and guitar and start playing on the porch, then split up and meet behind the house. Their goal was to still be on the beat when they rejoined at the back. Momentously, when he was ten years old, after a fight with his brother, he was playing his banjo to calm his mind. He was practicing the standard “Reuben” when found he could incorporate his third finger into the picking of his right hand, instead of his usual two, in an unbroken, rolling, staccato. He ran back to his brother, shouting, “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” He was on the way to creating an entirely new way of playing the banjo: Scruggs Style.
A wonderful read. Earl will be missed on Earth and the band in Heaven just got significantly better.
Posted by DaveH at March 28, 2012 7:26 PM