Earl Scruggs was the most influential and most imitated banjo player in the world. He helped give birth to bluegrass music when he joined Bill Monroe’s band and introduced his innovative and exciting three-finger style of playing five-string banjo on the Grand Ole Opry.
—Gary Scruggs, musician and son of Earl Scruggs
In 1959, New York Times music critic Robert Shelton compared Earl Scruggs to Niccolò Paganini by writing, “Earl Scruggs bears about the same relationship to the five-string banjo that Paganini does to the violin.” As a natural virtuoso who was self-taught without reading music (or tablature), Scruggs perfected and popularized the three-finger method of banjo picking that was already in existence throughout the region where he grew up in North Carolina. His endless hours of practicing around his childhood schooling and chores on the family’s cotton farm resulted in syncopated rhythms and a clarity of notes emphasizing melody lines that refined the more “raw” picking styles of his predecessors. The rapid speed and precise timing of his various roll patterns also contributed to a distinctive technique that became the standard by which all five-string banjo players after him learned, called “Scruggs style.”
A shy man of few words, Earl expressed himself through his banjo. The communication from his head to his hands was superb, as many of those interviewed have referenced—they could detect his feelings through the notes he played. And like many musical geniuses, Scruggs brought a unique quality to his instrument that had never existed before him but will continue to live long after. Crucial to this understanding is knowing the right-hand roll patterns that he put forth, which are tantamount to an entirely new language. This unheard vocabulary for the five-string banjo was carved out of a series of patterns that he invented. Even though he believed that the forward roll pattern, used exclusively, was limiting (or at least he came to know this as he gained more experience playing banjo), he never ceased to use it or variations of it in his own particular style. He merely thought you didn’t have to be limited to one type of roll.
Any new banjo student has to contend with an array of Scruggs roll patterns like the forward roll, alternating thumb pattern, backward roll, forward-reverse roll, and Foggy Mountain roll (which is prominently featured in Earl’s signature composition, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” but is also a standard in other tunes). Another characteristic in his musicianship is the way he separated his notes when he played. Musicians will often talk about the proper distance between the notes (the separation of notes) as a necessary component of playing with consistent timing. “With Earl it was not about playing more notes or playing more complicated notes,” professes multigenre banjoist Jens Kruger. “But it was about how you play them. The first time I heard Earl Scruggs, I thought he was so amazingly precise—that was my first impression. Every note was in time and good tone. I mean, that was the first thing I instantly knew.”
Good tone is a key element that Scruggs aficionados often mention when talking about his musical abilities. He developed a tone quality that demonstrated the attention he paid to the notes he picked, giving them the importance they deserved within the context of any given tune. The tone he created was the result of what he felt within himself, which corresponds with the idea that it also has a connection to the feeling, or emotional component, of the musician. Earl’s sound was pleasant to the ears due in large part to the unequaled touch he had on the strings of his banjo. It was not something he could really explain to people when asked how he pulled tone the way he did; he just simply picked and didn’t think too much about it.
“Earl was one of a kind, and he did it his way; he was a three-finger genius,” admits veteran bluegrass banjoist J. D. Crowe. “There will never be another Earl Scruggs. Nobody has ever come close to Earl in tone and sound. He had that special something that no one else had. He was the first and he couldn’t have done it any better.” This sentiment is fairly widespread. Progressive banjo player Matt Menefee plays a style today that includes a great deal of jazz, fusion, blues, and various other forms of contemporary music, yet his first exposure to the five-string was through old Flatt and Scruggs records. The impact of Earl’s banjo for him was “like a deluge of truth, soul, and tastiness flooding into the parched ears of the listener. I could feel every note. Like a bomb going off inside of me and the feeling of shrapnel being broadcast throughout my bloodstream and embedding itself under my skin. He found the sweet spots in rhythm that defined bluegrass banjo.”
Timing concerns itself with the consistency of the beat. In a band scenario, the timing goes awry when a player either speeds up and rushes the beat or slows down and drags the beat. In such a situation, you’re only as good as your weakest link. The relentless timing with which Earl Scruggs played was made possible by the other members of his two primary bands: the Foggy Mountain Boys and the Earl Scruggs Revue. They, in essence, created the rail system upon which Earl’s “timing-drive” train could ride. “Earl had the extreme luxury of playing with the same guys all the time for many years, and when you can depend on the guys who are backing you up, as he could, drive takes on many different definitions,” echoes bluegrass banjoist Charlie Cushman. “Earl had that luxury of being able to spontaneously put drive anywhere he wanted to, real sweet, or real laid back, or right dead on the beat. His vocabulary and the way he set up his solos, and all his backup, is what really defined Earl Scruggs.”
The disciples of Earl each have their own take on the definition of timing and drive, yet there is very little disagreement that he played it better than anyone else. “His drive and his power, and if you’ve seen videos of the old Martha White shows, the power he played with is just amazing, just the drive, it was like an explosion when Earl played,” notes seasoned banjoist Bill Emerson. “Earl didn’t have anyone to go by or copy like we did, and I just think that’s the way he felt it, and the way he heard it; it was something he was born with, and he just developed that himself.” Legendary banjo player Kenny Ingram further explains, “Earl gave the banjo a voice that it never had before, an actual voice, you know. The banjo was singing while he was playing, and that’s my best description of Earl’s drive and timing. It’s so simplistic sounding that it fools most people and most people are not even close.”
There is something appealing about an instrument played with what seems to be a perfect separation of notes. When you combine that with drive, you’ve created something that’s long lasting in the ears of the listener. “All the old guys always talked about timing,” comments bluegrass banjoist Butch Robins. “As far as Earl is concerned, he played five to ten milliseconds in front of the beat and he didn’t rush it.” Concurringly, Blue Highway guitarist Tim Stafford predicates, “It’s as close to rushing as you can get, and Earl was the master at it. Like he’s almost rushing, but he’s not, he’s still inside the groove of the band.”
Drive is not only confused with the idea of playing good timing, but often there is an expressed misunderstanding that drive is equal to a fast tempo. “Drive is not speed, drive is not necessarily a high-paced tempo, and that’s where a lot of people get it confused,” remarks bluegrass mandolinist Doyle Lawson. “They think if it’s fast, it’s drive. There’s an emotion in the picker and the picking, and you can feel it whether or not it’s a fast song or a slow song. [An] example is the song ‘Before I Met You’ by Lester and Earl. Listen to Earl’s break, that’s drive.”
Scruggs’s musical talent was an instinct to know exactly where to place a given phrase, lick, or note, whether he was playing lead or backup. It’s what he didn’t play that stands out, which is another way of saying that he didn’t upstage the music but kept it simple. “He was a genius at backing up other instruments,” insists Ron Block, banjoist for Alison Krauss and Union Station. “I love what he does behind the fiddle; it adds so much tension and excitement. Earl ‘got with’ whatever was playing and played to it, and played for it. He didn’t overplay. He didn’t distract from the fiddle, or Dobro, or the other instruments, and especially the vocals.”
Earl Scruggs was a stickler for playing the melody and not doing anything to distract from what the other musicians were attempting to accomplish onstage. “Earl was the best at creating a mood with the solo, and with his backup, and with everything,” says Lonesome River Band banjoist Sammy Shelor. “He was one of those guys who could play backup while the singer was singing, but he never got in the way. There’s only been a few musicians who can do that. I can’t do it; I have to display my fills during the breaths, then I’m a rhythm instrument while the singer’s singing.” Earl’s breaks were always focused on the melody, and his backup playing was crafted around complementing what the vocalist was singing. “When he played a melody note, the melody note stood out. It just reached out and touched [you],” adds professional banjoist Steve Dilling. “It’s kind of hard to describe, it was just head and shoulders above anything else. He was the greatest melody player to ever come along.”
The manner by which Earl Scruggs picked the five-string banjo stemmed from a basic philosophy coupled with subtle nuances that contributed to his unique style. In his Banjo Newsletter column “Earl’s Way,” Bob Piekiel describes the final ingredients in detail:
When you looked at Earl from the front, if you watched him play, it looked like his fingers weren’t moving much at all, but if you looked at him from the side, most of the picking motion he was getting was coming from his fingertips plucking up toward his palm. In other words, the fingertips and the first two joints of his fingers from the tip back, that’s where he was getting most of his picking motion from. So between the length of his fingers and the way his fingers curled, he was almost picking the strings from the bridge, up and away from the head in a vertical motion towards his palm, not picking the strings horizontally. That snap is what gave him the crisp, driving tone, coupled with the fact he had a very strong thumb he learned to use in the early days.
Earl had a bunch of subtle little movements and tricks that he would do that he wouldn’t even think about to embellish certain sounds like sliding with his fingernail, or lifting his hand off the [banjo] head when he picked certain notes. Sometimes he would brush the strings sideways versus picking them like I was describing. Sometimes he would stroke down with his thumb across two or three strings rather than just picking one. There were a bunch of things that he did that you couldn’t identify unless you saw him do it.
When it came to Earl Scruggs’s most acclaimed works, two songs and one album rank at the top of the spectrum (among many) in both popularity and influence. Almost everyone who watched the 1960s hit sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies can sing the catchy theme song and even try to mimic the banjo solo (with something like, bang-da-da-bang-da-da-bang). “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” introduced Earl Scruggs and his three-finger style of banjo picking to mainstream Americans who had yet to hear bluegrass music. Some of the best banjoists in the world, like Béla Fleck and Terry Baucom, received their introduction to the instrument via the Hillbillies. “That really made an impression on me,” Baucom confesses. “That really hit me. Like, man, this is something, and I would love to do that as well.”
“Foggy Mountain Breakdown” is Earl’s other Hollywood connection and took his 1949 composition to levels that seemed unattainable when it was originally recorded at a radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. Though Scruggs played his signature tune for many years, it was Warren Beatty’s fondness for the vintage recording that persuaded him to insert it into his 1967 blockbuster film Bonnie and Clyde. What was once old had become new as the talent of Earl Scruggs was solidified into American pop culture.
Even more so than “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” spawned a host of disciples who were enamored by the energy they heard coming from him in just two minutes and forty seconds. “The sound of his playing was so exciting and also mind boggling to me at eleven years old,” cites Blue Highway banjoist Jason Burleson. “The original ’49 version of ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ stands out in my memory. I remember listening to that over and over and over. It still can’t be beat in my opinion.” The general feeling about this particular cut among Scruggs enthusiasts is that it couldn’t be duplicated by anyone else, including Earl himself. “He recorded ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ a number of times,” says bluegrass banjoist Haskel McCormick. “But the first recording was the best one to me, the 1949 recording. He didn’t put in too much, but put in exactly what it needed. It was perfect, simply perfect.”
Of all the albums that Earl Scruggs recorded, Foggy Mountain Banjo (1961) is hailed as his instrumental masterpiece. Virtually every tune on this album is a classic hit with Scruggs-style banjo players as well as bluegrass fans, and you would be hard-pressed to find many people claiming one track is better than another. Several professional banjoists point to Foggy Mountain Banjo as being one of the first albums that motivated them to play. Greg Cahill, founder of the bluegrass band Special Consensus (aka Special C), elaborates on how the LP became a game changer for him to pursue Scruggs style. “When I was in this folk group, and the guy that I played with in this group came over one Saturday afternoon, and I was still living in a dorm at that time, and he said, ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ and he put the Foggy Mountain Banjo album on my record player. It was stunning, just jaw dropping, and that was it for me—that did it.”
The appeal of that early concept album transcends musical genres, even decades after its release. The proof of its insightful reach beyond the boundaries of bluegrass, folk, and Americana can be found in the declaration of avant-garde musician/composer Colonel Bruce Hampton:
Jeff Mosier [former bandmate in the Aquarium Rescue Unit] played Foggy Mountain Banjo for me in ’87 or ’88, and I just sat there on the floor dumbfounded. I’ve studied every form of music there is for thirty years and I couldn’t believe that Earl escaped me. I thought, this is impossible, no one else could do this on earth, you know, nobody can do this. There are probably ten albums that are the greatest of all time and Foggy Mountain Banjo is certainly one of them. It’s a masterpiece. Earl is the king of kings as far as I’m concerned.
According to the International Bluegrass Music Museum, Earl Scruggs wrote or co-wrote over 150 songs and instrumentals during his professional career. Most people are unaware of the plethora of compositions he made popular in the world of country and bluegrass music. His instrumentals are considered bluegrass classics and are some of the most copied tunes heard in jam sessions and bluegrass festivals worldwide to this day. Not to mention that many of the vocal songs he recorded with Lester Flatt, the Earl Scruggs Revue, guest artists, and his Family & Friends band have become either standards or fan favorites.
In addition to chronicling his musical history, depictions of the banjo man’s quiet and humble demeanor are a recurring theme throughout this book. Comedic actor and professional banjoist Steve Martin recalls: “His sweet nature, his kindness. . . . Earl was very polite.” As Doyle Lawson recollects, “Earl was a funny guy, he had a dry sense of humor, and it just came natural. He was a smart man too and had a good head for business.” Many of Scruggs’s personal attributes are revealed, as well as a few bumps in the road that he encountered while traveling through his eighty-eight-year journey of life. He was well respected and appreciated for his gracious treatment of people with whom he had contact. Generosity with his time, talent, and possessions came naturally without strings attached. No doubt, the most treasured commodity Scruggs acquired was his prized prewar Gibson RB-Granada Mastertone banjo. Regardless of the instrument’s monetary or sentimental value, Earl was very trusting in letting others touch it, play it, and even borrow it. Steve Dilling shares such an account from an event at the International Bluegrass Music Association convention:
We were at the IBMA in the fall of 1996, and my wife and I went up to Earl and Louise’s room to visit some with them. Out of the blue, Earl asked me if I wanted to play his banjo. He knew we were doing the Flatt and Scruggs tribute album and wanted to know if I wanted to play his Granada on the album. I said, “Well sure, I’d be honored to.” So that was earlier in the day and he told us to come back later, and I could pick up the banjo, and take it back to my room, and change strings if I wanted, and whatever. So we went back up to Earl’s room and hung out with them a few minutes, and then I took his banjo. So we got back to our room, [and] I couldn’t wait to get it out of the case. I started taking the resonator off and my wife is like, “What are you doing?” I said, “I just want to take some pictures.” I told her, “Just think of all the licks that have been played on this banjo. Think of the licks that all us banjo players play, that were born on that banjo,” you know, when you think about it that deeply, because that was his main axe. Licks that [we] have grown accustom to playing, that are just standard banjo licks, were probably born on that banjo.
The following chapters are a testament from the collective memories of numerous musicians and entertainment professionals who were influenced or inspired by Earl Scruggs. Together, with members of the Scruggs family, their stories provide a personalized account of the life and legacy of the banjo man. “Earl’s contribution to the world of music is very important,” notes Steve Martin. “Bill Monroe might’ve invented bluegrass, but it was Earl who gave it the sound that lives on today. And there’s very few musicians who actually have changed the nature of their instrument—one of them is Earl.” Despite his passing in 2012, Earl’s legend continues with every new generation of banjo players; no matter how progressive the style gets, Scruggs can be heard in every roll.