[78-L] Earl Scruggs has died

[David Sanderson]

On 3/29/2012 2:44 PM, Erwin Kluwer wrote:
> RIP Earl!
>
> Few musicians were as influential as Earl..
>
> On par with Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Blind lemon Jefferson, Chuck
> Berry, Bill Monroe,,,,
>
> Erwin
>
> On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 7:08 AM, Cary Ginell<soundthink at live.com>  wrote:
>
>> The legendary bluegrass musician was 88. No one person was more
>> influential on an instrument than Scruggs was on the five-string banjo.
>>
>> Cary Ginell

Influential, yes, but interesting in that he was not a leader and 
creator like Monroe and others. I suppose a good comparison is Chet 
Atkins, or Merle Travis. Scruggs took the indigenous three-finger banjo 
style he learned in North Carolina and turned it into a polished, 
sophisticated way of playing.

His final steps toward the style seem to have been taken when he was 
first with Bill Monroe - there are live recordings of him at that time 
where his smooth flow of notes has yet to appear. And I wonder how much 
Monroe himself had to do with developing Scruggs - Bill was very much a 
teacher and maestro to the musicians who worked with him, always. And 
there is partly the question of timeliness - without a venue that 
Monroe's creation of Bluegrass offered, what would Scruggs have done 
with his music?


-- 
David Sanderson
East Waterford Maine
dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com
http://www.dwsanderson.com