Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was a banjo player and composer from the Flint Hill community of Cleveland County, North Carolina. His specific three-finger picking style became the standard way of playing bluegrass banjo. He joined Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys in late 1945, alongside Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise, and Howard Watts, and that lineup's 1946 and 1947 recordings became bluegrass standards. Flatt and Scruggs left Monroe in 1948 and formed the Foggy Mountain Boys. The same year, Scruggs married Louise Certain, who became the duo's booking agent and then its manager. Flatt & Scruggs recorded "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" in 1949, and Scruggs composed "Earl's Breakdown" and "Shuckin' the Corn." The duo's "Ballad of Jed Clampett," the theme for The Beverly Hillbillies, became the first bluegrass record to reach number one on Billboard's country chart, in 1962. "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" won a Grammy Award after it was used in the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. Flatt and Scruggs split in 1969. Scruggs then formed the Earl Scruggs Revue with his sons Randy, Gary, and Steve, and the band played until he retired from the road in 1980. A 2001 recording of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" with guest artists won him a second Grammy. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. He joined the Country Music Hall of Fame with Flatt in 1985 and received a National Heritage Fellowship in 1989. He was one of the first inductees into the IBMA Hall of Honor in 1991 and received the National Medal of Arts in 1992. He died in Nashville in 2012, at age 88.
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