Mar 29, 2012
Bluegrass banjo pioneer, Earl Scruggs, passed away yesterday at 88
Yesterday, music legend Earl Scruggs passed away of natural causes in a Nashville hospital.
In 1945, Bill Monroe invited 21-year-old Earl Scruggs to play the banjo in his band, and bluegrass music hasn’t been the same since. Scruggs innovated, mastered, and popularized a style of playing the banjo that is now the standard among bluegrass banjo players.
From Wikipedia…
Scruggs-style banjo is played with picks on the thumb, index and middle fingers…. The strings are picked rapidly in repetitive sequences or rolls….
The music is generally syncopated, and may have a subtle swing or shuffle feel, especially on mid-tempo numbers. The result is lively, rapid music, which lends itself both as an accompaniment to other instruments and as a solo.
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nachurl as pissin’…
He also played with Steve Martin, another accomplished banjo musician!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMTVV5Lwaw
My gramps would love this. I also grew up listening to some of these guys (although I tended towards hip hop). My grandparents, to this day, still get together with their other musically inclined friends and have bluegrass jam sessions.
Well, he would hate that Earl Scruggs passed away. He’d love the video I meant.
About 40 years ago, my uncle had a cat named Scruggs, after Earl. When he and my aunt acquired a tiger skin rug (I said it was 40 years ago), they named it Flatt, after Lester.