Earl Eugene Scruggs
picked up a banjo at age four and discovered his now-famous three-finger
method at age ten.He joined
Bill Monroe's band in 1945 and laid down his first tracks with them a
year later.In 1948, he quit
the band to take care of his mother.Another Blue Grass Boy, Lester Flatt,
turned in his notice at the same time, and the two of them went on to form
The Foggy Mountain Boys.The
band stayed together for twenty years, keeping bluegrass music alive during
a time when it had all but been pronounced dead.Part of the reason for their success
was their long-time sponsor, Martha White Flour Mills:Another was their indefatigable work
ethic, playing on radio stations, television programs, and in live concert
venues throughout the U.S.Flatt & Scruggs went places no bluegrass band had
gone before:They became the
first bluegrass band to have their own syndicated television show, earned
the #1 spot on Billboard's country music chart with "The Ballad
of Jed Clampett", and toured Asia in
1968.They played Broadway and
Carnegie Hall and The Grand Ole Opry.In 1969, they went their separate
ways, Flatt committing to traditional bluegrass,
and Scruggs yearning to make inroads in folk rock.(They were inducted into the Country
Music Hall of Fame in 1985.)Scruggs
went on to form The Earl Scruggs Revue with his two sons.The same year The Earl Scruggs Revue was released, Earl wrote the score for
the film Where the Lilies Bloom.His legacy has inspired at least two
generations of banjo players, including Bela
Fleck and Steve Martin, and he has won numerous accolades, including Grammys for "Earl's Breakdown" and "Foggy
Mountain Breakdown" (which has won on three separate occasions), The
North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award, an
Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of Music,
and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first banjo player ever
to do so.As recently as 14
October 2007, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
