Earl Scruggs passed -- the inventor and master of 3-finger style banjo picking. Dang it.

The Three Pickers is the best live bluegrass album ever.

I love Earl. He practically invented a whole new kind of music of the highest quality that is distinctly American and could never be mistaken for anything else. Not many people can do that. Scott Joplin comes to mind. Anybody else?

I thought of you when I saw that, A.P. It's a sad day.

W.C. Handy

Bob Wills.

Steve Martin wrote a fantastic article about him in The New Yorker. What I always found so impressive about Scruggs is that he personally changed the way everyone played the instrument. Now when someone learns to play the banjo they learn the Scruggs method. It's so accepted that they don't even really attribute it to him, they just say that's the way you play the banjo.

Few musicians ever have that kind of impact on music.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scott Brumley:
Bob Wills.

---

A native son of Limestone County!

You're quite right, David!

That's why I always say I play "Scruggs-style 5-string banjo." That immediately separates the 4-string, Dixieland style, and the old clawhammer style from the mix. I play a Gibson Mastertone because that's what Earl played; play "Earl's Breakdown" because it's very cool in anybody's book; have a "Scruggs" 5th-string capo; the only invention of his that I don't have is the "Scruggs" tuners -- another purely American design -- and I don't have them because I didn't want to bore holes into the Mastertone's peghead. He had several, so he could afford to chop one up.