[78-L] I'll take Three Finger Earl any day

[Cary Ginell]

The comment was not made with regard to Reser and Scruggs' relative technical abilities. The key word here is "influential," and using that barometer, Scruggs beats Reser by a country...pardon me, a "hillbilly" mile, to use the pejorative, outdated word you employed. Anyone who knows anything about Scruggs knows that he did not limit his abilities to bluegrass music - which, by the way, has a lot more to do with jazz and improvisation than most people realize. After he broke up his partnership with Lester Flatt, he started one of the first fusion country/rock bands, the Earl Scruggs Revue. Listen to Earl's banjo along with such rock icons as Sting, Melissa Etheridge, John Fogerty, and Don Henley is a revelation. I can't even fathom how the Clicquot Club Eskimos (which most people can't even pronounced without tripping over their tongues) can compare to the Foggy Mountain Boys or Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in world-shattering influence. Go to Japan some day - they have bluegrass festivals there, with each and every banjo player playing Scruggs' three-finger technique. There's nary a Harry Reser festival to be found. Get with it, Al. Earl Scruggs was an earth-shaker, on par with Armstrong, Crosby, Bernstein, and anyone else you want to mention in the 20th century. "Three Finger Scruggs" was a giant among giants and there should not be an argument there at all.
 
Cary Ginell
 

> From: simmonssomer at comcast.net
> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:08:24 -0400
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Earl Scruggs has died
> 
> Well Erwin, if you have to ask you obviously don't know.
> A good place to start would be his Columbia recordings with his own band or 
> The Clicquot Club Eskimos or the Okeh Syncopaters or The Six Jumping Jacks,
> Then...compare his virtuosity with Three Finger Scruggs. In my opinion he 
> was the foremost banjoist and bandleader of the twenties and thirties and 
> was not
> limited to hillbilly music. (-:
> 
> Al Simmons
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Erwin Kluwer" <ekluwer at gmail.com>
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 4:40 PM
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Earl Scruggs has died
> 
> 
> > what about Harry Reser??????
> >
> > On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:17 PM, simmonssomer 
> > <simmonssomer at comcast.net>wrote:
> >
> >> Uhhhh...what about Harry Reser ?
> >>
> >> Al Simmons
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "David Sanderson" <dwsanderson685 at roadrunner.com>
> >> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> >> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 3:08 PM
> >> Subject: Re: [78-L] Earl Scruggs has died
> >>
> >>
> >> > 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
> >> >
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