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Thursday, August 23, 2001
Earl Scruggs jams with the best
Latest album is a collaboration with fellow all-star musicians
By Jim Patterson
Associated Press

Associated Press

Earl Scruggs (left) and his son Randy have released a new album titled 'Earl Scruggs and Friends.'

   NASHVILLE, Tenn. - When Earl Scruggs waxes fondly about the old days, he doesn't dwell long on his role in inventing bluegrass with Bill Monroe, or his long and successful partnership with Lester Flatt.
   Sitting in his spacious contemporary home - a former residence of George Jones and Tammy Wynette - the 77-year-old Scruggs weaves tales from his days in the 1970s as patriarch of The Earl Scruggs Revue. The country-rock outfit was popular on college campuses, but is generally considered a footnote in Scruggs' career.
   Three of his sons - Randy, Gary and Steve - played in the band.
   Rock acts
   The group played on bills with rock acts like Steppenwolf and folkies like James Taylor. Sometimes they played festivals before 40,000 people.
   "To me, it was the most exciting thing that I've ever done," he said. "At my age, playing with my own kids and the energy they had. I hadn't played with that kind of energy before in my life. It was really an exciting time for me."
   His new CD, "Earl Scruggs and Friends," is his first album in a decade. It's an extension of The Earl Scruggs Revue.
   Elton John, Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt, Sting, Melissa Etheridge, Leon Russell, Vince Gill, Rosanne Cash, John Fogerty, Don Henley, Johnny Cash and actor Steve Martin (on banjo) are all featured. Randy Scruggs produced the album, and Gary Scruggs performs on it. Steve Scruggs died in 1992.
   The album could be a disappointment to those who yearn for more bluegrass revelations from a key member of Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, and half of the seminal Flatt & Scruggs.
   Rock meets country
   Except for a burning all-star "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," the album is contemporary rock and country music. Scruggs is more interested in seeing how his banjo can fit into a Sting or Etheridge song than revisiting past glories.
   "He's not interested in re-creating something he's already done," said Randy Scruggs.
   "It's about saying that at this moment, this is what I truly feel like doing. ... That's what's great about creating something you hope will have a long life - taking chances."
   Scruggs has been a musical innovator his entire life.
   Born in Flint Hill, N.C., he took up the banjo as a child, and had forged his own style by the time he was a teen-ager. When Scruggs joined Flatt in Monroe's band in 1945, the combination - including fiddler Chubby Wise and bassist Cedric Rainwater - was so potent that it spawned imitators and launched the bluegrass movement.
   Early influences
   Flatt and Scruggs broke away from Monroe in 1948 to form Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. That group was also popular and influential, with Flatt & Scruggs featured periodically on the TV sitcom "The Beverly Hillbillies" as well as scoring a hit with the show's theme song.
   It wasn't difficult to nab the collaborators.
   "Getting to play 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' with Earl Scruggs was such a thrill," said David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer. "It was like getting to meet Beethoven and jamming with him on 'The Fifth.'"
   Russell said Scruggs "is not only a great player, but an inventor of music, with a quiet power inside his humility that is not unlike the Zen masters of the East."
   Scruggs sees things from a different perspective.
   "I don't know what sets it off, but I just get wanting to pick once in a while."

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