Earl Scruggs and How He Changed American Music

As you surely know by now, Earl Scruggs passed away last week. He was 88 years old and was out touring and performing just about to the end.
His legacy will be talked about for a long time to come, but what has always struck me about Earl Scruggs was the fact that he seemingly came out of nowhere in the mid 1940s and forever transformed the way an instrument is played as well as the way we hear American string band music. There are always innovators who come along, but Earl’s innovations were a huge quantum leap for the banjo—a leap that took the instrument from old-time string band music into bluegrass and beyond. And though Bill Monroe is considered the father of bluegrass music, it was Scruggs’ incredible, driving, syncopated banjo style that really defined bluegrass as a distinct new form (my favorite early description is “folk music in overdrive”) that took off in the late 40s. And Earl did all this while he was still in his early 20s. I can’t think of any other musician that completely transformed an instrument to the extent that he did, and to me that kind of genius is absolutely magical. Scruggs truly wrote the book on the 5-string banjo (literally and figuratively), and it took several decades before any more really major innovations came along—and even those were essentially extensions that grew from Earl’s foundation.

There’s a lot of Scruggs’ music out there, but if you’re looking for the best stuff to listen to to get a sense of his style and his genius, check out the classic recordings of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Listening to the classic Flatt and Scruggs recordings from the early 50s, you get a sense of the full spectrum of style that Scruggs created. There’s the drive of “Down the Road” or “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” the swing and boogie-woogie feel of “Foggy Mountain Special” and “Six White Horses,” the use of “Scruggs” tuners on “Earl’s Breakdown” and “Foggy Mountain Chimes,” and the alternate tunings on “Reuben” or “Farewell Blues.” And then you get his occasional lead guitar playing, using the same three-finger style (though with different roll patterns) on songs like “You Are My Flower” and “God Loves His Children.” And then you have the fact that his playing was a great influence on Josh Graves, his eventual bandmate who helped the Dobro get off the ground to become a legitimate bluegrass instrument. Pretty wide-ranging influence indeed.

Though Foggy Mountain Breakdown is surely the most famous tune in Earl Scruggs’ music, here’s one of my favorite tunes he played; he didn’t write this one, but he absolutely made it a banjo classic and a bluegrass standard. His musical sense, his way of varying the melody, the way he phrased—it was always impeccable.

And here’s a pretty cool one with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson from a little later in Earl’s life:

There are many other great Earl Scruggs You Tube videos out there. I hope you enjoy these and hope that they may lead you onward to explore more great music by this American legend as well as other banjo innovators who came after him, like J.D. Crowe, Bill Keith, Alan Munde, Tony Trischka, Bela Fleck, and on and on and on. I think I speak for all of us when I say thank you, Earl!