Earl Scruggs Death

Earl Scruggs Death, Earl Scruggs, whose distinctive picking style and association with Lester Flatt cemented bluegrass music’s place in popular culture, died Wednesday of natural causes at a Nashville hospital, his son Gary Scruggs said. He was 88.

“I realize his popularity throughout the world went way beyond just bluegrass and country music,” Gary Scruggs told CNN. “It was more than that.”

For many of a certain age, Scruggs’ banjo was part of the soundtrack of an era on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” — the theme song from the CBS sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” which aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and for decades afterward in syndication.

But much more than that, he popularized a three-finger picking style that brought the banjo to the fore in a supercharged genre, and he was an indispensable member of the small cadre of musical greats who created modern bluegrass music.

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.”