Recording At WBBM And Performing At The Old Town
“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,” the New York Times reports.
“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.”
Let’s take a look at Scruggs’ Chicago connections, including video from his performance at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 2009.
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“Hillbilly music in Chicago centered around the WLS’s live National Barn Dance, which offered radio audiences cosmopolitan skits side-by-side with grassroots musicians such as Doc Hopkins and Bradley Kincaid,” the Encyclopedia of Chicago says. “One of the show’s clog dancers, Kentuckian Bill Monroe, returned to Chicago in 1946 to make his first bluegrass recordings with banjoist Earl Scruggs.”
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In the fall of 1949, Monroe, Scruggs and Flatt recorded a bunch of songs at WBBM.
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“‘Backin’ to Birmingham’ tells the comic tale of a Chicago city slicker who wants to be a long-haul trucker.”
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In 2003, Bobby Reed wrote in the Sun-Times ahead of two sold-out shows at the Old Town that “Scruggs is the most important banjo player in country-music history. Using any criterion – whether it is commercial success, artistic innovation or critical acclaim – no one has done more to further the public’s understanding and appreciation of this instrument.”
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Also from Reed:
“Scruggs started playing banjo when he was 4, and by age 10, he had developed his three-finger picking style.”
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“For many years, it seemed certain that physical and emotional setbacks would prevent the virtuoso from ever hitting the road again. Plagued by persistent back problems, Scruggs stopped touring in the ’80s. In 1992, tragedy struck when his son Steve committed suicide. Four years later, Scruggs had hip-replacement surgery, and while he was in the hospital recovery room, he suffered a heart attack.
“Between 1984 and 2001, the North Carolina native did not record any new material. Speaking from his home in Nashville, Tenn., Scruggs discussed the lengthy delay between albums.
“‘I didn’t know it had gone on that long, really,’ he said. ‘At one time, I got to the point where I didn’t care to play at all. When we lost Steve, our youngest son, that hit me like a freight train coming down a track. I just lost interest in playing for a good while. Then, all the sudden, it came back.'”
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“His comeback album was the star-studded 2001 disc Earl Scruggs and Friends, which included guests such as Elton John, Vince Gill, Sting and Marty Stuart. The album included a new version of his signature instrumental tune, ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown,’ which earned Scruggs his third Grammy Award.”
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In 2009, Scruggs returned to the Old Town:
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Comments welcome.
Posted on March 29, 2012