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You are here: Home / Music / RIP, Earl Scruggs

RIP, Earl Scruggs

by John Cole|  March 28, 201211:32 pm| 39 Comments

This post is in: Music

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Dead at 88, which is a damned solid run:

He was an amazing picker, although my brother shunned his style to go clawhammer.

You all know I am a strange bird, but one of my all-time favorite banjo recordings is Tabula Rasa, with Bela Fleck, V.M. Bhatt, and Jie-Bing Chen, which is just hauntingly beautiful and so odd but so perfect:


Waterlily Acoustics
, the recording studio that made that, has without question some of the most perfect recordings you will ever hear. And now, since we are all stream of consciousness, here is still one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard:

Peter Gabriel’s Realworld work has been breathtaking. I have multiple albums, including Sheila Chandra, the Drummers of Burundi, Musicians of the Nile, and so forth. Good stuff. Not everyone’s cup of tea, of course, but I have no specific style of music other than good music. And what is good music? I know it when I hear it.

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Reader Interactions

39Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    March 28, 2012 at 11:36 pm

    So I’d bet you’re familiar with Debashish Bhattacharya, then?

  2. 2.

    Bruce S

    March 28, 2012 at 11:36 pm

    Earl Scruggs – Family & Friends

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A51yM6fjnAE

  3. 3.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    March 28, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    He’ll be missed; he was indeed a mighty picker.

  4. 4.

    S. cerevisiae

    March 28, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    I remember the elderly lady next door who baby-sat me had several Flatt and Scruggs albums and they rapidly became my most requested when I was there. Great Picker. RIP.

  5. 5.

    forked tongue

    March 28, 2012 at 11:50 pm

    Nice tribute to Earl Scruggs, John. I especially liked all the references to songs Earl Scruggs had nothing to do with.

  6. 6.

    dp

    March 28, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    RIP. What a talent. Slightly off-topic, his son did a finger-picked acoustic guitar version of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” on a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band record, that is absolutely amazing. I use it to demonstrate finger-picking to people who don’t know what it means.

  7. 7.

    TaosJohn

    March 28, 2012 at 11:53 pm

    I like your musical recommendations, John. Please give the album title when you mention a single track. I’ve sold my soul to Spotify now, so I just grab whole albums on a whim to listen to. The Bela Fleck thing is there, now in my playlist.

  8. 8.

    The Dangerman

    March 28, 2012 at 11:59 pm

    If you’ve never seen Bela fleck and the Flecktones in concert, do so. They are incredible. Victor Wooten (bassist) is recognized as probably the best around, Jeff Coffin is fucking incredible, and then there’s Bela. Well worth looking them up.__

    As for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, here’s a song that he did with Eddie Vetter; stunningly beautiful.
    ETA: Fucking paragraphs, how do they work?

  9. 9.

    Cain

    March 29, 2012 at 12:00 am

    Wow, today I learned that John Cole likes Nusrat Fetah Ali Khan, who is really one of the best in Sulfi music (qawwali music) He uses a lot of elements of northern indian music specifically the “Sa Re Ga Ma” scale..

    Anybody interested in listening to him should try out “Mustt Mustt” album.

  10. 10.

    tofubo

    March 29, 2012 at 12:00 am

    adrienne rich passed yesterday

    http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/11586848-418/adrienne-rich-feminist-poet-and-essayist-dies.html

    http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/adrienne-rich

  11. 11.

    gbear

    March 29, 2012 at 12:04 am

    What the fuck was Paul Shaffer doing in that video? I hate that kind of all-star shit (not that there weren’t some great musicians in that video).

  12. 12.

    AA+ Bonds

    March 29, 2012 at 12:06 am

    jis dil meN Muhammad kii muhabbat nahiiN hotii
    us par kabhii Allah kii rahmat nahiiN hotii
    meraa ye aqiidaa hai agar zikr-e-Khudaa meN
    ye naam na shaamil ho ibaadat nahiiN hotii
    __
    On the heart that doesn’t love Muhammad
    Allah never has mercy.
    It is my belief that while remembering God
    if this name [Muhammad] is not included then prayers wouldn’t be answered.

  13. 13.

    dollared

    March 29, 2012 at 12:28 am

    RIP Earl, how many people you made happy over the years.

    Of course, I personally would have been happier if you had never met Bela Fleck…..

  14. 14.

    inyake

    March 29, 2012 at 12:53 am

    This is another amazing N.F.A.K. track. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgJkYm8PTOg

  15. 15.

    Constance

    March 29, 2012 at 12:55 am

    Everyone in the Scrubbs vid looked like they were having so much fun I was laughing and crying by the end. Thanks!

  16. 16.

    Quaker in a Basement

    March 29, 2012 at 1:05 am

    @Cain: I know! Cole digs Nusrat? Even cooler than I imagined.

  17. 17.

    dead existentialist

    March 29, 2012 at 1:15 am

    @tofubo:

    After she left her husband, he committed suicide later in 1970. She later came out as a lesbian and lived with her partner, writer and edit

    Gay marriage kills or something. Dude shoulda taken up the banjo.

  18. 18.

    sneezy

    March 29, 2012 at 1:59 am

    Damn, that is some serious pickin going on in the first video.

    I liked the second one so much I just bought an album by Jie-Bing Chen. I hadn’t heard of her before. She’s awesome.

  19. 19.

    RadioOne

    March 29, 2012 at 2:23 am

    As far as country music goes, I really miss Graham Parsons, Doug Sahm, and Buck Owens. They were great.

  20. 20.

    dan

    March 29, 2012 at 6:32 am

    I scrolled down and saw the screen shot of Nusrat and I thought it was Chris Christie.

  21. 21.

    Betty

    March 29, 2012 at 8:07 am

    I’m with Constance – I loved how much fun the guys were having in the Scruggs ad friends video.

  22. 22.

    Captain Goto

    March 29, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @gbear: Dude–hang in until about the 3:00 mark. You’ll see why he was in there.

  23. 23.

    burnspbesq

    March 29, 2012 at 11:07 am

    @The Dangerman:

    If you really want to hear Bela at his best, seek out his duet album with Edgar Meyer, “Music for Two,” and the Strength in Numbers album “The Telluride Sessions.” the Flecktones are a waste of time, too much flash at the expense of substance.

  24. 24.

    Origuy

    March 29, 2012 at 11:14 am

    I saw Flatt and Scruggs together with Steve Goodman and John Prine back in college in Urbana, probably in 1977. That was an amazing concert.

    A different kind of picking; Simon Shaheen on the oud.

    One of the most popular bands on Realword is Afro-Celt Sound System.

  25. 25.

    Daaling

    March 29, 2012 at 11:39 am

    I see Not Republican Cole is settling in on his niche. Which is talking about ANYTHING but politics, or macro finance, or the stock market, or just about anything we come to BJ for.

    Yea, just stick to posting album covers and pictures of your stupid dog. Hard to get that wrong I guess.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    March 29, 2012 at 11:52 am

    The music in the first vid was pretty good, but after attempting to watch it, I am inclined to track down the film editor and strangle him repeatedly. Or do the rusty-pitchfork-thing of which Cole is (apparently) so enamored.

    Look! Over there! A bunny rabbit!

    What a fucking clown, he ruined what could have been a great experience.

  27. 27.

    ino shinola

    March 29, 2012 at 11:52 am

    To me it’s like Muddy Waters said, “the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll”. The blues had another brother (coulda been a sister, but I think it was a brother) called Bluegrass. The relationship between siblings was always strained, and there’s a very fundamental reason for that. The banjo is absolutely essential to the bluegrass sound. Electric guitar is absolutely essential to rock and roll.
    But when you pair them it usually sounds horrible, and they both want to go back home as soon as they’re done with the pumpkin pie and they don’t have to get together again until next Thanksgiving (unless Bill Graham has some stupid idea about a Fourth of July reunion).

    I love rock and roll, but I think it’s been good for music that those reunions were rare.

    So please, please don’t remember Earl just because he was a less-dumb redneck who could see the obvious superiority of the new-fangled rock and roll over that hillbilly crap he’d been stuck in.

    I love Albert Lee, I like Leon Russell and those other guys, and Dylan changed my life too, but Earl’s truly revolutionary innovation from his days with Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt will stand several centuries longer than his version of “Like a Rolling Stone”.

    I don’t know what Earl would have wanted, but I wish you’d chosen a different clip. Something black and white with Earl wearing a cowboy hat.

    I miss him, the world’s a better place because he was in it. Thanks for putting up with my complaining and remembering him on the blog.

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    March 29, 2012 at 11:56 am

    @burnspbesq: I’m not really a Flecktones commonsewer, but someone said a similar thing to me 20 years ago. (Of course, that guy’s son was Bela’s “competition”, so I took it with a grain of salt.)

  29. 29.

    jake the snake

    March 29, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    Earl Scruggs was indeed a great picker, Might have made something of himself too, if hadn’t spent so much time hanging out with hippies.

  30. 30.

    merl

    March 29, 2012 at 12:43 pm

    Is Lester Flatt still alive?

  31. 31.

    SFAW

    March 29, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    @merl:
    Died in 1979.

  32. 32.

    Canadian Shield

    March 29, 2012 at 3:04 pm

    V.M. Bhatt is great. I love that he plays an instrument that he invented (Mohan Veena) which is a sort of Indian Dobro-tar.
    I saw him do a show in a little room at the Provincial Museum in Edmonton Alberta, very cool.

  33. 33.

    Canadian Shield

    March 29, 2012 at 3:07 pm

    I also really liked this comment at the Pierce blog:

    Originalism and strict constructionism are pseudo-intellectual attempts to turn the Constitution into the Bible: A document written by an infallible being whose will only a certain elite group can divine, which they will then translate into rules that you must obey.

  34. 34.

    brendancalling

    March 29, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    i think I may be the only bluegrass and old-time picker on this blog (correct me if I’m wrong), so let me jump in a little late. Earl was the last of the original Blue Grass Boys, Bill Monroe’s band that introduced the style. He was one of the last of the first generation bluegrass performers (still standing are Ralph Stanley, who can’t pick anymore and just sings) and Curly Sechler, who played mandolin for lester and earl’s next band, the Foggy Mountain Boys.

    It marks the end of an era. Earl inspired countless musicians, including me. He was, by all accounts, a deeply compassionate and thoughtful man, an opponent of the vietnam war, a musician who was always growing, and a damned decent individual. Even after the breakup of his partnership with Lester, and the ensuing ill fellings, he managed to make it to Lester’s deathbed to say goodbye to his old friend.

    if it wasn’t for bluegrass music, I wouldn’t be half the musician I am today. So if you get a chance, dig yourselves some pike county breakdown, one of Earl’s most driving instrumentals.

  35. 35.

    mikeyes

    March 29, 2012 at 3:35 pm

    Brendan,

    You are not alone. I first met Earl Scruggs when I was 14 when the Williams brothers (who owned Martha White) gave us some tickets to the Opry and an introduction to Flatt and Scruggs. I was already playing the five string banjo and thought I had gone to heaven when I shook his hand. This was 1958 and I have picked bluegrass and OT (and Irish trad)continuously since then.

    He lead a good life.

  36. 36.

    brendancalling

    March 29, 2012 at 4:44 pm

    @mikeyes: AWESOME!

    I am much more of an old-timey picker these days. Bluegrass, to me at least, has become much more interested in technique than anything else. The competitiveness also kinda turns me off: no one plays to the song these days, it seems, preferring to make sure everyone gets a solo in.

    Irish trad and old-timey is such a collective sound: I feel like I have more freedom to improvise in old time than I do in bluegrass, which supposedly emphasizes improvisation.

  37. 37.

    ino shinola

    March 29, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    Another bluegrass singer/guitar picker/old time fiddler here. I started in the 70’s and my initial inspiration was The Grateful Dead’s acoustic albums from the mid-70’s, “American Beauty” and the sepia one with “Uncle John’s Band”. That was the gateway to traditional music for a lot of folks my age.

    I don’t think there’s ever been a more solid rhythmic unit than Flatt & Scruggs. I heard Allen Munde say, and I think he got it from somebody else I can’t remember, that their music was “weightless”. That effortless speed was (is) just astounding. Fun music.

  38. 38.

    ino shinola

    March 29, 2012 at 5:36 pm

    Another bluegrass singer/guitar player here, also beginning old-time/bluegrass fiddler. BG is my true love, I really like to hear what individual instrumentalists have to say. My group has been spared the competitive showing off, but it’s a complaint I’ve heard elsewhere too.

  39. 39.

    ino shinola

    March 29, 2012 at 5:38 pm

    Sorry for the repetition, my first post disappeared and then magically returned after my second.

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