The master of the banjo

Earl Scruggs: Still on top at 80

Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Posted: 10:09 AM EDT (1409 GMT)

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Banjo great Earl Scruggs played on two of bluegrass music's most recognized songs, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" and "Foggy Mountain Breakdown."

But don't call him a bluegrass musician.

"I'd rather not pigeonhole it. If someone wants to call it bluegrass I have no qualms about it, but I don't like to label it in one category," Scruggs says of his music, which is represented on a new CD, "The Essential Earl Scruggs."

Scruggs, who turned 80 in January, has had a diverse career, recording with pop, rock and country artists, including Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Elton John, Sting and Don Henley.

When he was just a boy, Scruggs developed the three-fingered roll or "Scruggs Style" of banjo playing that is widely credited with giving bluegrass its distinctive sound.

The North Carolina native met Lester Flatt in 1945 when they were in Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys. The two left a few years later and formed the Foggy Mountain Boys and eventually the hugely successful Flatt & Scruggs.

The duo's "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" from "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show reached No. 1 on the country charts in 1962 and crossed over to the pop charts. Five years later, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," a tune Scruggs wrote, was featured in the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" and became a bluegrass standard.

Today, Scruggs shows no signs of retiring. He still performs and says he wants to make a live album if he can find the right venue.

At his spacious, gated home, Scruggs, dressed in a gray shirt and tie, sat on a spotless white couch and answered questions, every so often turning to his wife and longtime manager, Louise, to help him recall a name or date.

Q: How did you develop your own style of banjo picking?

SCRUGGS: I remember trying to pick with just two fingers. But the two-finger style just didn't have the syncopation, I don't think, that the three-finger did. It just made the notes come out more even. I don't read music so I don't know how to intelligently talk about it except that it was a more even flow. It also helped me to play slow numbers as well as uptempo tunes.

Q: What was your first exposure to the banjo?

SCRUGGS: My father. He played before having died when I was only 4. He died with cancer. I just remember Horace my brother saying that he used to wake us kids up in the morning sometimes picking the banjo.

Q: How did you join Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys?

SCRUGGS: Monroe had a fiddle player named Jim Shumate and we'd have breakfast every Saturday morning at the Hotel Tulane (in Nashville). Shumate knew of my picking and each Saturday he would beg me to come to work with Bill. Well, nobody had ever exposed the banjo the way I played it and I didn't know if Bill would even care for it or not. So I auditioned for Bill and he gave me a job.

Q: Do you think "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" and "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" are Flatt & Scruggs' best work, or are they just the tunes that happened to get the most attention?

SCRUGGS: A little of both. "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" has just been a number that caught on and a lot of other acts have played it. "The Beverly Hillbillies" was the hottest thing I was ever involved with. It was the virgin days of television and to be on the network with such professionals ... the exposure from that is what really helped me more than anything else.

Q: After you and Lester Flatt went your separate ways in 1969, you formed The Earl Scruggs Revue with your sons. You have called this period the most satisfying of your career. Why?

SCRUGGS: Well, you look around and you've got three sons out there playing with you. They knew everything that I played plus they were listening to young rock 'n' roll groups and people I'd never heard tell of. So I started playing with my boys, and boy, they brought some numbers in there like (the Beatles') "Lady Madonna" and some of that stuff that just played real good.

Q: Why were you open to stretching the boundaries when many other bluegrass and country musicians were very traditional?

SCRUGGS: I never did delete anything from what I wanted to play or who I wanted to play with if it sounded good. I enjoy the mixture, and I've learned a lot playing with new artists.

Q: What do you think of bluegrass today?

SCRUGGS: I'm glad to see it's alive and well and people are still playing it.

Q: How would you like to be remembered?

SCRUGGS: As someone who takes it seriously -- not serious enough to look like I'm not excited about it. But I do take my music seriously, and it's something that has just been a part of me. Really, when I'm happiest is when I'm on stage or someplace doing material with a good band.