Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs - Legends of Bluegrass Music

By Mac Martin

Apart from Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs are arguably the most famous and influential bluegrass musicians of all time. They were able to popularize the genre even more than Monroe himself, mainly due to their tremendous exposure from television and movies.

Like so many other bluegrass legends, Flatt and Scruggs got there start as members of Monroe's band, the Bluegrass Boys. The addition of Flatt's soulful vocals and Scruggs' superb talent on the 5-string banjo resonated well with the audiences and soon Monroe's new band was a hit everywhere they played. Flatt and Scruggs were members of Monroe's band from 1945 until 1948 when they left to form their own band called Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys.

Television and movies rocketed Flatt and Scruggs to stardom more than any other bluegrass band in the history of the genre. In the early 1960's they were featured on the top-rated television show, "The Beverly Hillbillies". They played and sang the show's theme song, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", and were also seen in cameo appearances from time to time for many years. Reruns of those shows are still played around the world even today. Their recording of the theme song was the first bluegrass song to reach the #1 position on the country music charts and greatly helped to popularize bluegrass music across the nation.

In 1967 the big hit movie, "Bonnie and Clyde" featured the Scruggs instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" making the song one of the most well known bluegrass instrumentals ever recorded. Scrugg's newly popularized style of banjo playing would become the standard in bluegrass. He virtually reinvented the banjo with his three-fingered style of picking which has since become known as "Scruggs style" picking.
In 1969, Lester and Earl split up to pursue different musical directions. They were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.

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