Earl Scruggs Banjo

Earl Scruggs Banjo, American music has had a multitude of instrumental innovators whose gifts have influenced not only their chosen instrument and musical genres. Only a few, however, have managed to transcend their instrument, their genre and even the very culture that nurtured them to influence and shape other musical styles and cultures.

Louis Armstrong and Les Paul come to mind immediately. So do Lester Young, Jimi Hendrix and Gene Krupa as well as Chet Atkins, Art Tatum and Earl Eugene Scruggs. Scruggs died Wednesday at 88 in a Nashville hospital ending a remarkable journey that began in rural North Carolina.

He remains the fountainhead of the five-string. Though the instrument was long part of rural American music both black and white, he defined its use in bluegrass and other musical forms in ways that inspired generations of banjoists and other instrumentalists as well. He also played a major role in expanding the popularity of bluegrass, the music created by Bill Monroe. This is “Randy Lynn Rag” from the 50’s, named for one of Earl’s sons. It pretty much explains what I’ll be talking about here.

In that clip you can hear the rolling, easily flowing and melodic style Scruggs created, one that remains timeless, his version of a banjo style popular in the area of North Carolina where he grew up. Elsewhere, five string banjos were classical instruments. Rural musicians both black and white would play in a style known as “clawhammer” or simply strum the strings with the thumb and index finger, as played by Pete Seeger, early Grand Ole Opry pioneer Uncle Dave Macon and the late Grandpa Jones and Stringbean of Hee-Haw fame.

Want to see the difference in styles? You’ve heard Earl. This is Stringbean himself, as a guest on the Flatt and Scruggs syndicated TV show.

Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs, Earl Scruggs, the bluegrass banjo player whose hard-driving picking style influenced generations of players and helped shape the sound of 20th-century country music with his guitar-playing partner, Lester Flatt, died on Wednesday in a Nashville hospital. He was 88. Mr. Scruggs, shown in 2007, mastered a three-finger picking style that elevated the five-string banjo from a part of the rhythm section to a lead or solo instrument.
Mr. Scruggs, left, on banjo and Lester Flatt on guitar in 1963. His son Gary confirmed the death.

Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Flatt probably reached their widest audiences with a pair of signature songs: “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” which they recorded in 1949 with their group the Foggy Mountain Boys, and which was used as the getaway music in the 1967 film “Bonnie and Clyde”; and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” the theme song of the 1960s television sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies.” (Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Flatt also appeared on the show at times.)

But he also helped shape the “high, lonesome sound” of Bill Monroe, often called the father of bluegrass, and pioneered the modern banjo sound. His innovative use of three fingers rather than the claw-hammer style elevated the five-string banjo from a part of the rhythm section — or a comedian’s prop — to a lead or solo instrument. What became known as the syncopated Scruggs picking style helped popularize the banjo in almost every genre of music.

Mr. Scruggs, who had played banjo since the age of 4, got his big break when he joined Monroe’s band, the Blue Grass Boys, in 1945. The band included Monroe, who sang and played the mandolin; Mr. Flatt on guitar; Howard Watts (a k a Cedric Rainwater) on bass; and Chubby Wise on fiddle.

When Mr. Scruggs stepped up to play during an instrumental section, “listeners would physically come out of their seats in excitement,” Richard D. Smith wrote in “Can’t You Hear Me Callin’: The Life of Bill Monroe.”