By Donna Davis
One hundred years ago, a baby was born who was instrumental in putting Shelby, North Carolina, on the map. What Elvis was to hip-twitching, this child would be to the three-finger style of playing an instrument originating from West Africa. By age 6, he was already performing “Cripple Creek,” raising eyebrows and winning competitions. He would go on to bring favorable meaning to the word “breakdown.” Earl Scruggs wasn’t the first or last musician to become an accomplished banjo player, but his contributions to the instrument and bluegrass and country music were so significant that musician and writer Bob Carlin marks time as “BE” (before Earl) and “AE” (after Earl).
It’s only appropriate that five-string fans flocked to a festival 40 miles west of Shelby to celebrate on Labor Day weekend. The noonday sun at the Earl Scruggs Music Festival was too hot for mad dogs and Englishmen, but Southern Scruggs fans soldiered on. The music was hotter. Earl nerds lived their best lives.
In addition to the usual draw of plentiful and glorious music, the festival offered friendly, rocking-chair-on-the-front-porch style access to some musicians and family who were a part of Earl’s inner circle. Like Marty Stuart, a child prodigy himself, who played in the band of Earl’s longtime musical partner Lester Flatt and collaborated with Earl plenty through the years. Peter Rowan became a Bluegrass Boy in Bill Monroe’s band in 1965 when Rowan was 23, roughly 17 years after Earl and Lester left for greener pastures, they plowed for themselves, but they left their marks. Scruggs’ nephew, J.T. Scruggs, was also on hand, and the panelists weren’t afraid to pluck and tell. “The Wizard of the Workshops,” writer and musician Tommy Goldsmith, facilitated the discussions.
Mary Beth Martin and Zach Dressel of the Earl Scruggs Center shared their adventure navigating and curating Scruggs memorabilia from the home of Earl’s son Greg after his passing.
“We were told we had about 24 hours to go through all these things and decide what we wanted for the museum,” Martin said. “We went with a game plan, and there were a few things we looked for right off. And we also took a risk on some things. Like what we call the Mickey Mouse notebook.”
At first, they didn’t know what they had. But then they opened up the three-ring binder with the image of Disney’s trademark character on the cover and found pages and pages of handwritten notes Scruggs left about his life. It answered a lot of questions about his early years in particular.
“These notes, we think started when he was working on ‘The Five String Banjo’ instructional book, a staple in bluegrass at this point,” Dressel said. “A lot of it is rough-drafting for that. And then it goes on up into the ’80s — and actually, we have a type-written page, because Earl got on the computer, or at least maybe Gary was typing for him — in about 2009. That was three years before he passed.”
What’s great about that, the Earl Scruggs Center staff members said, is that as a primary resource, the notebook reflects an early period of his life when things were still fresh.
But the notebook was just one of many items that tell of Scruggs’ life story. There were hundreds of awards and photographs. Keys to nearly every city in Tennessee and North Carolina. Original album cover art from Live at Carnegie Hall. Little packages of banjo strings, where for hundreds of shows, maybe thousands, Scruggs would take a string off his banjo, put it back in the package, date it, and also write the location where he played that show. That included the packet of strings from when he recorded the Will the Circle be Unbroken album.
“So, we have just an incredible resource. …A chronological timeline of where Earl has been,” Martin said.
In maybe a year’s time, Martin and Dressel said, fans will be able to call the Center and ask if Scruggs ever played in their hometown. Given his propensity to play in every small town around, he probably did, and the Center will be able to find a set of strings documenting it.
“What’s amazing about Earl — and by extension about Louise, because I’m sure she had a role in this — is that he would sign and date everything,” Dressel said. “When I say everything, ...there’s a banjo we have on loan right now called the Faulkner banjo. …Noam Pikelny owned it for a few years ...it’s a top-tension that Jim Faulkner built for Earl around 1970, and every single part of that banjo has his signature on it. And every single piece of everything. Everything in our Earl Scruggs collection, odds are, he signed it. I heard a story that he did it so his banjos wouldn’t be split up. You would know this was off Earl’s banjo in perpetuity.”
Martin said her favorite object from the entire collection they brought back from Gary Scruggs’ house was the capo. It was in a tiny plastic bag, but Earl thought to rip off the corner of a piece of paper and write, “First capo I ever made, Lily Mill 1943.” It’s very primitive, Dressel said, but it’s a trapezoid style capo similar to what banjo players use now. But back then they were having to build them because they weren’t made en masse. Earl made use of the machine shop at Lily Mill where he worked during World War II to support his mother and sister.
In the Mickey Mouse notebook, Scruggs also writes about some of his early performances, particularly as a child and teenager. He talks a lot about playing with his brother, Horace, and some of his early radio appearances. His first was when he was 5 or 6 years old at WSPA in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
“There were a lot of older people in Earl’s life who helped shepherd him along,” Dressel said, “and so when he’s getting these radio gigs, it’s really somebody knows this kid can really play the banjo, and he’s 6 years old… ‘I’m going to bring him with me the next time I go to WSPA. They’ve got a 15-minute slot and I think people would really want to hear this.’”
Early performances took place in every small community around Cleveland, Rutherford, and Cherokee counties, Martin said. “Every county had their fiddler’s conventions, so there were competitions all the time,” he said. “It was a primary source of entertainment, or social event for people around. In fact, in his notes he writes that he won. Or maybe came in second place, he couldn’t remember. He said he didn’t know if he won because he was just a cute little kid or it was the judge’s favorite song, or he was really that good.”
“That’s classic Earl,” Dressel said. “When you read these notes, or anything he ever writes about himself, he just never quite understands how big of a deal he was.”
In the “Reflections of Earl” workshop, Marty Stuart provided a glimpse of the somewhat complicated relationship Flatt and Scruggs shared.
“When I went to work with Lester it was 1972. They had broke up in ’69, I think, but it was still fresh on Lester’s mind,” Stuart said. “He used to tell the story, and he’d tell it 50 times word for word the same way, the story of Flatt and Scruggs breaking up. But what I felt at the top was a lot of hurt and a lot of pain but what I felt underneath there was a lot of love. They were really the same guy in a lot of ways, Lester and Earl, because they helped invent each other. They helped bring the music to life, they helped bring each other to life, and a point of view to life. Lester and Earl, in their hearts, were brothers.”
But what Stuart considered his most important contribution came in 1979, when Bob Dylan was in town for a concert.
“Lester was in the hospital and it was evident he was not going to come home this time. There had been promoters take a run at Lester and Earl trying to get them back together. It was always talked about, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs getting back together, but it never quite happened after the split. So Bob Dylan came through Nashville and he said, ‘Does Lester and Earl talk?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so. I know there’s a lot of love there, but they never talk.’ Dylan said, ‘That’s a shame. Abbott and Costello was always going to talk. The little fat guy died and the other guy never got around to talking to him.’ And that statement hit me like a load of bricks.”
Stuart said he had never met Earl or Louise, but he called Lance LeRoy, Lester’s manager, and got their number. Louise answered the phone. After she got Earl to the phone, Stuart introduced himself.
“I said, ‘This is Marty Stuart, I play with Lester.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I like your picking.’ I said, ‘I like yours too.’”
Stuart asked to meet with Scruggs, saying it was important. When they met, Stuart simply said, “Lester’s dying. Whatever it takes, he’d leave this earth a lot more peaceful if you guys could see each other. I’ll do anything I can.’ He said, ‘I’ll think about it.’”
During the following days, Stuart said, Flatt’s band had to play a couple of shows on contract. When they got back to Hendersonville, Lance LeRoy was standing in the parking lot and he had tears in his eyes. He said, “Earl went and saw Lester last night.”
Apparently when Scruggs went to see his former bandmate at the hospital, Flatt said, “They want us to get back together.” To that Scruggs replied, “That’s a good idea. Why don’t you get better first and we’ll talk.”
In a summit on Scruggs’ banjo style during the festival, Charlie Cushman, banjo player with The Earls of Leicester who is credited for playing as close to the Scruggs style as can be found, shared his thoughts on Scruggs’ popularity: “Earl’s style was legible to the listener: they could hear the verse and chorus. Some players go all wacko on you.”
Kristin Scott Benson, six-time IBMA Banjo Player of the Year recipient, said, “What he created serves the genre so well. It speaks to his brilliance that we’re all still trying to do what he did, and we still don’t manage to.”
Benson offered advice to emerging banjo players. “If you’ve nailed the first two Earl Scruggs’ solos, you’ve earned the liberty to play what you want next. You’ve honored the tradition. It’s essential you’re grounded in Scruggs if you want to be believable.”
From the main stage Saturday night, following Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show proclaimed in the band’s set, “That is some Earl Scruggs approved hillbilly music in the old North State on a Saturday night.” He said, “We’re celebrating the contributions of Earl Scruggs to the story of country music, bluegrass, and old time. It should come as no surprise to anybody that it came out of a sleepy town in western North Carolina.”
Donna Davis is a North Carolina writer and columnist who covers music communities, events and players.
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