Biography

This collection of bluegrass instrumentals is a tribute to the legendary Earl Scruggs. His contributions in the mid-1940s to the role of the 5-string banjo while playing in Bill Monroe’s band, The Blue Grass Boys, changed the face of country music. With a grueling schedule of personal appearances, radio and television programs and numerous recordings for the Mercury and Columbia record companies, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys (1948-1969) established themselves as one of the world’s premier exponents of the genre which would come to be known as bluegrass.

Scruggs’ innovations on the 5-string banjo continued throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. Beginning in 1962, millions of people were exposed to his playing on the CBS network television series, The Beverly Hillbillies, and from the inclusion of his banjo composition “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” in the 1967 motion picture Bonnie and Clyde. From 1969 to 1980, The Earl Scruggs Revue, with a blend of acoustic and electric instruments, brought Scruggs’ banjo playing to a new generation of fans. Performing as The Legendary Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends, Scruggs continued to amaze audiences who came to see the most widely imitated 5-string banjo player who has ever lived.

There have been many styles of playing the 5-string banjo, but Earl Scruggs’ refinement of the "three-finger style" is still a cornerstone of bluegrass music more than 65 years after he first electrified a nationwide audience on his December 1945 Grand Ole Opry debut with Bill Monroe. With a celluloid thumb pick and stamped metal picks wrapped around the tips of the index and middle fingers of his right hand, the distinctive sound of Earl’s syncopated right-hand banjo technique remains the most easily identified element distinguishing bluegrass from other related genres of American music such as country, folk, or old time. During the past six decades, Scruggs’ banjo playing has inspired countless numbers of people - young and old and from all walks of life - to pick up the instrument and play it in what is now known the world over as “Scruggs Style.”

This album’s producer, Tim Austin, assembled a dozen cutting edge banjo players and ten stellar backup musicians to record the 12 tunes in this collection. Each track is based on Earl Scruggs’ playing as captured on studio recordings and live tapes made between 1949 and 1969. These tunes range from traditional pieces like “Sally Goodin” and “Reuben” to the western swing instrumental “Steel Guitar Rag” to Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline Rag.” “Pike County Breakdown” is based on Bill Monroe’s supercharged transformation of the folksong “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” The majority of the collection’s remaining tunes were written or co-written by Scruggs himself, including arguably the most famous banjo tune of all time, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

Performed by California native Craig Smith, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is the first of two tunes presented here that were originally released on 78 rpm discs on Mercury Records by Flatt & Scruggs. Craig was in his late teens when he first heard live tapes of Flatt & Scruggs at banjo player John Hickman’s house in southern California. He recalled the experience: “It was humbling. It was incredible because of the energy – especially the ’50s performances.” Craig’s version of FMB (as it’s sometimes called by banjo players) delivers the signature elements of the 1949 Scruggs cut combined with his own derivations. Craig includes Scruggs’ instrumental nod to "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean" in his first solo, and adds his own “tip of the thumb pick” to one of The Beverly Hillbillies television show’s original sponsors - Winston cigarettes - at the top of his third solo. Living in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina since 1980, Craig has toured with Laurie Lewis and with his own band, ASH&W. He has taught hundreds of people to play the banjo, emphasizing to each student the importance of learning the Scruggs Style.

“Pike County Breakdown” was originally recorded by Flatt & Scruggs in Tampa, Florida during their final session for Mercury Records. The tune is played in the key of A, being pitched higher by the use of a capo at the second fret, effectively raising the sound of the instrument’s “open” strings by one whole step. Fiddler Ron Stewart takes center stage as the featured banjoist. “I was honored,” Ron said, “to be a part of this tribute playing fiddle on several cuts but even more honored when asked to play one on the banjo.” You’ll be treated to some classic Ron Stewart banjo sounds just prior to the mandolin solo as Ron’s bluesy and snappy left-hand licks come to the fore. In keeping with the original 1950 cut of “Pike County,” Ron tags the tune with one of Scruggs’ patented three-part endings. A much sought-after studio musician on both banjo and fiddle, you can hear Ron Stewart’s work on many recordings of the past decade including Lynn Morris, Rhonda Vincent, J.D. Crowe, and - most recently - Dan Tyminski.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more staunch supporter of traditional bluegrass and country music than Joe Mullins. Joe’s reading of “Earl’s Breakdown” features all of the prerequisite Scruggs licks that any serious student of the instrument would demand for inclusion on the tune bearing its author’s name. Recorded in 1951, “Earl’s Breakdown” was the first Flatt & Scruggs instrumental on the Columbia label. The original version featured Earl tuning - and re-tuning - the banjo’s second string on the fly without the aid of the “D-tuners” or “Scruggs pegs” he would later develop. Mullins recalls advice about banjo playing he received from two of the instrument’s most highly-respected players, Sonny Osborne and J.D. Crowe: “They told me a hundred times: ‘Listen to how Scruggs did it.’” Joe’s playing can be heard on several textbook examples of classic bluegrass music recorded by The Traditional Grass and Longview.

“Flint Hill Special,” recorded by Flatt & Scruggs in 1952, featured, for the first time, the cam tuners that Scruggs had recently installed on his banjo. While “Earl’s Breakdown” required the re-tuning of a single string, “Flint Hill’s” signature sound comes from the re-tuning of two of the banjo’s five strings. Canadian-born David Talbot is in the driver’s seat for this version of “Flint Hill Special,” named for Scruggs’ home area near Shelby, North Carolina. Since his move to Nashville in 1998, Talbot has performed and recorded with Lonesome Standard Time, The Grascals, and Dolly Parton. About Earl, David says: “The precise execution of his right-hand technique has never been equaled."

Of all the tunes on this album, “Steel Guitar Rag” is the only one which Earl never commercially recorded. Tony Trischka learned Scruggs’ version from a live Flatt & Scruggs show from the mid-1950s. This instrumental was first recorded in 1923 as “Guitar Rag” by Sylvester Weaver, a black finger-style guitarist from Louisville who used a knife for his slide guitar work. But it was Leon McAuliffe’s extended arrangement, recorded in 1936 as “Steel Guitar Rag” with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, that became the classic inspiring the Scruggs rendition.

Famous for his exploration of the ever-expanding banjo frontier, Tony will be the first to tell like-minded players of the need to study Scruggs first: “You can learn to play ‘Cripple Creek’ relatively quickly, but then,” Tony emphasizes, “you spend the rest of your life trying to get the timing, the tone, and the subtlety.” In this version of “Steel Guitar Rag,” Tony’s first solo comes directly from the Scruggs playbook but his second foray takes us into Tony’s own world of banjo invention. “As I always say,” Tony adds, “I wouldn’t exist without Earl Scruggs.” With nearly 40 years’ worth of recorded works including the recently Grammy-nominated Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular, Tony is Rounder Records’ longest-standing artist.

Flatt & Scruggs cut “Foggy Mountain Special” in May 1954. This 12-bar blues is an extended embellishment of the seminal break Earl played on both “Heavy Traffic Ahead” and “Blue Yodel #4” for a Bill Monroe recording session in September of 1946. To avoid publishing conflicts, the tune is attributed to “Certain and Stacey” - the maiden names of Earl and Lester’s spouses - as was done on a number of Flatt & Scruggs hits over the years. Louise (Certain) Scruggs (1927-2006) acted as booking agent and manager for Flatt & Scruggs and later for the Earl Scruggs Revue. As a pioneer in the field of country and bluegrass music, she was largely responsible for the commercial success of Flatt & Scruggs and for bringing the Scruggs banjo style to an ever-widening audience for half a century.

Ron Block leads the Tribute Album version of “Foggy Mountain Special.” One of the most highly visible banjoists of the past 20 years as a member of Alison Krauss & Union Station, Ron reminds us about Scruggs’ playing: “Although there were people before him who came up with that three-finger style, nobody put it together in a package combining such great feel with an unswerving sense of time.” Like Craig Smith, Ron was also influenced directly by John Hickman’s tape collection of live Flatt & Scruggs shows. Recalling Scruggs’ right-hand rolls, Ron states: “There’ve been few banjo players that have even come close to Earl’s clarity and note separation.” Ron’s second solo on this track balances the classic 1950s Scruggs style with Ron’s distinct string-bending blues-driven style. As on the original, this 21st century take on Scruggs’ banjo blues features solos by all five instruments in the ensemble – banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and bass.

As was the case with each of the banjo players on this project, Charlie Cushman selected the tune he would play on the album. “I wanted to do ‘Randy Lynn Rag.’ It’s one of my favorite things that Earl ever did,” Charlie notes. The arrangement here follows Scruggs’ original recording of the tune composed to celebrate the birth of his second son. Banjo, fiddle, and Dobro are the featured lead instruments. “Randy Lynn Rag” introduced Dobro player Burkett Graves, also known as “Uncle Josh” or “Buck” Graves, as a member of the Foggy Mountain Boys, in 1955. This tune also introduced a new way of using Scruggs tuning pegs by raising the banjo’s second string to a note above that string’s normal pitch. Contrast this sound with the use of the tuners on “Earl’s Breakdown” and “Flint Hill Special.”

The 1961 Columbia album Foggy Mountain Banjo stands to this day as the most influential banjo album of all time. Three of the five remaining tracks on this project appeared on that recording. The Scruggs masterpiece “Ground Speed,” originally recorded in January 1959 and performed here by Kenny Ingram, kicked off that classic collection of Scruggs instrumentals. An important highlight of Kenny’s career was a five-year stint playing banjo with Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass, from 1973-78. More recently, Kenny worked with Rhonda Vincent and the Rage. Says Kenny of his mentor: “The way Earl could phrase and bend notes gave the banjo a new voice. If it weren’t for him, the rest of us would never have tried to do what we did.”

After “Ground Speed,” the next instrumental to be laid down by Flatt and Scruggs & the Foggy Mountain Boys was “Foggy Mountain Rock.” In addition to Certain & Stacey, Dobro master Buck Graves also gets composer credits. The tune employed a split arrangement featuring the Dobro on the first section dovetailing into Scruggs’ banjo solo on the second. On this tribute project, all six instrumentalists trade solos. However, Tom Adams takes on what has traditionally been the Dobro section of the tune, voicing it in the banjo’s upper range a la “Foggy Mountain Special.” In the track’s final foray into the tune’s second section, Tom wraps it up in typical Scruggs fashion.

Of this number Tom recalls: “The tune was seared into my brain early on as it was the theme for a local radio show called the Sunday Night Bluegrass Spectacular during the years when I first studied Scruggs and was learning to play the banjo. Earl Scruggs is my hero.” (Producer’s note: Scruggs-style playing is 3-finger picking. Because of the neurological disorder focal dystonia, which he developed in 2002, Tom played this track with the full use of only two of his right-hand fingers.)

“Reuben” is the tune that Scruggs himself notes he was experimenting with when he, at the age of 10, first made the transition from the conventional two-finger style of that era to a three-finger style, in 1934. Six-time IBMA Banjo Player of the Year Jim Mills leads the way on this one, complete with a solo using the banjo’s harmonics or “chimes” as they are sometimes called – a variation incorporated into the tune by Scruggs after the original release of “Reuben” on the Foggy Mountain Banjo album. In keeping with that rendition, the banjo is in open D chord tuning, giving this selection a distinctly different sound from the others in this collection.

Six decades after Scruggs’ first sessions with Bill Monroe, banjo pickers can take advantage of a wealth of transcriptions of nearly everything Scruggs ever played in the recording studio. “Earl was a trail blazer, doing stuff that nobody had ever done before," Jim reminds us, adding, "We take so much for granted in this world today. I, for one, do not take Earl Scruggs for granted.”

Most banjo enthusiasts would call all but one of the tunes on this album “banjo tunes,” while thinking of “Sally Goodwin” as a “fiddle tune,” save for the historic Earl Scruggs cut of “Sally Goodwin” on the Foggy Mountain Banjo record. The tune opens with just the fiddle and the banjo, reminiscent of the duets that Scruggs performed over the years perhaps most memorably with Benny Martin and later with Paul Warren, the Foggy Mountain Boys’ fiddler for 15 years.

Larry Perkins brings Scruggs’ classic “Sally Goodin” solos and backup to life here. Speaking of Scruggs’ vision of the banjo’s role in an ensemble setting, Larry says: “One of my favorite things about him is that he’s a team player. He’s all about ‘How am I gonna support the singer or the fiddle player?’” After moving to Nashville, Larry rented a house from Earl for 12 years where he and his banjo became frequent guests. Larry recalls fondly: “Just about every Thursday night there for a few years, everybody would gang up at the little white house in Madison, Tennessee,” adding: “I’ve never had a better friend than Earl Scruggs.”

Nine years passed between Scruggs’ recording of “Sally Goodin” and the last of the dozen tunes to be discussed here: “Nashville Skyline Rag.” During that period, Flatt & Scruggs gained considerable popularity in the American mainstream. In the 1960s, Columbia issued more than a dozen albums by Flatt & Scruggs. “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme from the television series The Beverly Hillbillies, became their biggest hit. Millions of viewers were introduced to Scruggs’ banjo playing during the show’s nine-year run. Flatt & Scruggs’ long association with both the Martha White Flour Company and the Grand Ole Opry continued until the band’s breakup. The 1967 movie, Bonnie and Clyde, featured the original 1949 recording of Scruggs’ most famous banjo tune, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and in 1968 the best-selling instruction book Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo was first published.

During February, 1969 (the same month that Flatt & Scruggs made their final Opry appearance), Bob Dylan recorded the self-penned “Nashville Skyline Rag.” Six months later, Flatt & Scruggs recorded it during their final sessions. Scruggs recorded the tune again a short while later for his Columbia album, Earl Scruggs – Nashville’s Rock. Over the years, “Nashville Skyline Rag” has become more closely associated with J.D. Crowe than with Earl Scruggs. J.D. has brought legions of fans and pickers alike into the Scruggs fold. In the early 1980s, Crowe’s playing on recordings by the Bluegrass Album Band brought the music of Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs to a new circle of bluegrass enthusiasts who had never heard the original 40s and 50s cuts from which much of the Album Band’s material was drawn.

About “Nashville Skyline Rag,” J.D. says, “We (The New South) still play it; still get requests for it.” J.D. - as enthusiastic as ever to give credit where it is deserved - had this to say in closing about Earl Scruggs: “I saw Flatt & Scruggs in their heyday; it’s branded right into my brain – Earl’s kickoffs, the backup, the way he would follow a fiddle. It was not the notes, it was the timing. You think about everything he’s done and all that he’s perfected and it’s just uncanny. It really is.”

Earl Scruggs’ banjo playing appears on hundreds of recordings. He inspired generations of banjo players to take up the instrument in the hopes that they could one day maybe - just maybe - kindle the kind of magic spark that first drew them to the 5-string banjo. John Hartford once said that part of the evolution of being a banjo player was realizing that the only way he could really be like Earl was to be himself. Here’s to each one of us in our quest to be like Earl; let us be ourselves, and in so doing, honor the man who has given deeper meaning to our lives.