Berkshire Eagle Column 7-10-04
Berkshire Eagle
I, Publius

A heroic musician
By Alan Chartock


Saturday, July 10, 2004 - I love my job and sometimes wonder whether I should be paying the station instead of the other way around.

Last week, we had a call from the folks at the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. They wanted to know whether I'd like to interview Earl Scruggs.

Now, I'm a banjo player and, like many others, I have always had two heroes. One is Pete Seeger, who might be described as the foremost force in the development of the banjo as it has been used in traditional and political folk music. The second is Earl Scruggs, the phenomenon who did more to develop bluegrass banjo playing than any other individual alive. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance.

Grey Fox is now one of the top venues in which to see great bluegrass. Two of the featured performers at the festival (July 15 to 18 in Ancramdale, N.Y.) are Ricky Skaggs and Earl Scruggs. Need I say more? Skaggs is the most talented mandolin player in the country, and Scruggs ... well, Scruggs is something of a legend.

Before Scruggs, there was no three-finger-picking in bluegrass. It was Scruggs who invented what I grew up calling "Scruggs picking." Before Scruggs, there was no such thing as Scruggs pegs, those magical extra tuners on a banjo that allow for a twanging sound that modulates between notes.

There are those who will tell you that Bill Monroe was the father of bluegrass. Some of us believe that without Earl Scruggs there would be no contemporary bluegrass.

No matter. My all-time bluegrass hero is now 80 years old and still playing, and playing well. I couldn't believe it when I got on the telephone with him (the full interview will be aired on WAMC's Round Table on Wednesday and Thursday) and talked about life. We pretty much went through his whole career. He told me how he was fiddling around with his banjo and invented his Scruggs style that everyone in bluegrass now uses. A working man with a family orientation, he was soon playing on the radio.

When he got to Bill Monroe's band, he met his partner, Lester Flatt. Discouraged by the huge amount of traveling and several shows a day, Flatt and Scruggs left the band to return to more mundane work, but ended up forming their own band. Their local radio show soon blossomed into international stardom.

It is ironic that despite his legendary musicianship, first with Flatt and then with his talented children and other Scruggs bands, he is known more for a TV show than anything else. Many of you will remember Scruggs' picking from "The Beverly Hillbillies," the sitcom about country bumpkins who become millionaires, related in "The Ballad of Jed Clampett."

When I interviewed Scruggs and his manager wife, Louise, she told me that the producers of "The Beverly Hillbillies" had approached them about doing the theme music for the show and she had originally declined because she thought the word "hillbillies" had an unflattering connotation for Southerners. She only changed her mind when assured that the program would not make the members of the cast look silly.

Good thing that she did. The show propelled Flatt and Scruggs into mega-

stardom and the tune soared to No. 1 on the charts. In fact, the two appeared on several episodes of "The Beverley Hillbillies" playing themselves. That led to another huge assignment doing music for the movie "Bonnie and Clyde."

Finally, in a split possibly eclipsed only by the divorce between Gilbert and Sullivan, the two men dissolved the act. According to Scruggs, Flatt wanted to stick to the traditional old-time bluegrass classics while Scruggs is always interested in trying something new.

During the Vietnam War, Scruggs, the Southern bluegrass banjo player, stood up at the largest gathering of protesters in history in Washington and played for the assembled throng. To understand how gutsy that was at that time in our history, move forward in time a bit and see what happened to the Dixie Chicks when one of their number dared to open her mouth about George Bush and his policies.

When I asked Scruggs whether he was afraid his Vietnam protest might have hurt his career, he only said, "I didn't give a damn." When I asked him why he did it, he said, "I was afraid they'd take my kids." When I asked him whether it hurt his career, he said that, in fact, his bookings went way up. What a man.

There are a few rare people who are great musicians and who are there when their country really needs them. It would appear Earl Scruggs is one of them.




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Alan Chartock, a Great Barrington resident, is president and CEO of WAMC Northeast Public Radio and a professor of communications at SUNY-Albany. His web site is www.alanchartock.com
- posted by Alan @ 7/11/2004 08:49:00 AM