Legendary musician and banjo player Earl Scruggs passed away this morning at the age of 88. Even if you were not listening to bluegrass at the time and were a kid watching television, you still knew Flatt & Scruggs, as I did every week when I watched The Beverly Hillbillies and they played their instruments on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” to open the show (with Jerry Scoggins singing on the version used on the show).
During his great career, Scruggs played with a number of famous artists, including Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Ravi Shankar, King Curtis, Elton John, and many others. The actor, comedian, and banjo-player Steve Martin wrote about Scruggs in The New Yorker earlier this year, “Few players have changed the way we hear an instrument the way Earl has.” Below is a clip from 2006 where Martin joins Scruggs to play “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Scruggs started with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in 1945, but then left with Lester Flatt to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, which later became known just as Flatt & Scruggs through the 1950s and 1960s. Scruggs also was one of the few country or bluegrass artists who spoke out publicly against the war in Viet Nam, appearing at the 1969 US Vietnam Moratorium in Washington, DC. Below is Flatt & Scruggs playing “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.”
Flatt passed away in 1979. Here’s hoping somewhere the two are making some sweet music again. RIP.
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