The Banjo Man

Earl Scruggs is an 80-years-young American icon, his name universally synonymous with a unique three-finger style of country-folk-bluegrass banjo-playing.

He has sold millions of albums worldwide in a colourful career that has spanned over six decades, and has been involved in a multitude of cross-genre collaborations with artists as varied as The Chieftains, Bob Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Loudon Wainwright, Joan Baez, Dan Fogelberg and The Byrds. He is unquestionably one of two people without whom bluegrass would not be the potent musical force it is today, the other being the late Bill Monroe, with whom Scruggs teamed up in 1944 in the Bluegrass Boys.
It’s never happened before, but through some instinctive sense of reverence towards a man who is arguably the best-known banjo-player in the world, I call him Mr. Scruggs throughout the interview.
Yes, he’s looking forward to his debut visit to these shores. "My knowledge of Ireland from films and elsewhere suggests it’s mighty good farmin’ country. I was raised on farms in the Appalachian Mountains and I enjoy looking at farms and being on farms. Besides, a lot of real country music originally came to us in the USA from Ireland.”
As his name appears in countless lists under ‘country’, ‘folk’ and ‘bluegrass’ banners, I wonder which genre-tag suits him best.
"I’m really just a country musician. I was raised with five kids on a farm in North Carolina. We made a livin’ from farmin’ but we didn’t even have a radio. But there was a banjo in the house that belonged to my daddy. So when I was about four, I started playin’ it and developed my own style from there. Back then we had to make our own music and we didn’t really care what anybody called it, but I’ve always thought of myself as a country musician.”
Scruggs’ innovative approach saw him take traditional tunes usually played on the fiddle and adapt them for the banjo, thereby creating a new form of music that became known as bluegrass – and was eventually to inspire the "newgrass" revival decades later.
According to the man himself, however, bluegrass is just a name that was later tagged on to country music, possibly by a dj who wanted to distinguish music with Scruggs-style banjo pickin’ in it from traditional country music.
"It’s had all kinds of names. They used to call it ‘old-time string band music’ or ‘hillbilly music’, but when I added my banjo-style it changed the sound dramatically and they started calling it bluegrass. But it’s still country music to me!"
Scruggs had gone to Nashville in 1945 to the Grand Ol’ Opry. After a spell with the Bluegrass Boys, he formed the Foggy Mountain Boys with guitarist and singer Lester Flatt – for what was to be a highly successful twenty-year union. During the ’60s, Earl established his name with the music for the tv series The Beverly Hillbillies and hits like ‘The Ballad Of Jed Clampett’, ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’ and ‘Nashville Cats’. It is believed that in the ’60s, The FMBs outsold everybody in country music except Johnny Cash, but in 1969 they split and Scruggs formed the electric-country outfit the Earl Scruggs Revue.
Not surprisingly, that highly-personalised 'Scruggs Style' banjo technique made him a much-in-demand musician for a whole catalogue of diverse performers. He has fond memories of his many collaborations with other musicians down through the years.
"I like all those guys like The Byrds and Dylan and The Chieftains because they’ve got a good rhythm to them. I like that rhythm. I like to see new groups coming along too. I don’t care if they’re playing old tunes if they have a different angle on it.”
What has he in mind for his appearance at the Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival?
“I’ll have a band with me of really fine musicians that I love playing with. In fact I’m told that one of The Chieftains will be joining us for the concert in Ireland, although I don’t know which one. We’ve recorded and done live shows with them and they’re swell guys."
Scruggs has been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and last year, at the age of 79, he cemented his place, literally, in American cultural history by having his handprints embedded in the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame. He feels that the events of 2001 in New York and Washington have encouraged Americans to go back to their roots, with a consequent growth in interest in their folk music heritage, including country and bluegrass.
While that might have contributed to the huge success of the film and soundtrack of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, I wonder if such cultural introspection can be a bad thing if it turns people away from the outside world. But Mr Scruggs disagrees. "I’m not sure we’ll ever recover from those events, but whenever people turn to new experiences and find something truly valuable in their own musical roots, that’s a good thing”.