XPost: rec.music.country.western, alt.music.country.classic, alt.banjo   
   From: gcmccoury@yahoo.com   
      
   NASHVILLE, Tenn (AP) - A faded concert poster from the 1968 Miami Pop   
   Festival may tell as much about banjo great Earl Scruggs as any of the   
   other relics in a new Scruggs exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame   
   and Museum.   
      
   That day Scruggs and his then-partner Lester Flatt shared the bill with   
   the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Marvin Gaye, James Cotton, Richie   
   Havens and the Box Tops - all for $6.   
      
   Scruggs, 81, has always been more open-minded about music than most of   
   his contemporaries, whether picking with bluegrass legend Bill Monroe,   
   jamming with jazz saxman King Curtis or recording with pop star Elton John.   
      
   This wide-ranging eclecticism is part of his legacy, and Scruggs   
   continues adding to it.   
      
   This year he will share the stage with an array of younger artists at   
   three major rock and roots music festivals: North Carolina's Merlefest   
   (April 30), Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music Festival (June 10-12) and   
   Colorado's Telluride Bluegrass Festival (June 19).   
      
   "I like to play with some of the young bands that play rock 'n' roll,   
   because I don't play rock 'n' roll, but there's enough rhythm in what I   
   play that if you've got somebody who knows how to put a little sway in   
   it, it really comes off in a country tune," Scruggs said.   
      
   Dressed in a shirt and tie in his sprawling, gated Nashville home,   
   Scruggs and his wife and longtime manager, Louise, had recently returned   
   from the Grammy awards in Los Angeles, where he picked up the fourth   
   Grammy of his career for the rerelease of "Earl's Breakdown."   
      
   He says the banjo has always come easy to him. He never learned to read   
   music or spent long hours copying records.   
      
   "I could play anything I could hum - I still can," Scruggs says. "If I   
   had a tune on my mind, I could pick up the banjo and pick it to the   
   point that the song is off my mind. I've always thought I learned more   
   in my sleep than when I was awake."   
      
   The exhibit, "Banjo Man: The Musical Journey of Earl Scruggs," opens   
   March 4 and runs through June 16, 2006. It traces his life and career   
   from his childhood in rural North Carolina through his years with Bill   
   Monroe's band, Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and the   
   folk-rock group he formed with his sons in the early 1970s, the Earl   
   Scruggs Revue.   
      
   The Scruggs family, especially Louise, is well represented. She began   
   booking and managing Flatt & Scruggs in 1955 and continues to manage her   
   husband's career today.   
      
   "She was the first professional manager in country music as well as   
   being the first woman," said Mick Buck, curator of collections at the   
   Hall of Fame. "She had a huge role in advancing their career behind the   
   scenes."   
      
   She saw opportunities to expand Scruggs' audience beyond country and   
   bluegrass, first with the folk movement of the 1950s and early '60s and   
   later, she says, with the hippie movement that included bookings like   
   the Miami Pop Festival and college rock concerts.   
      
   The exhibit includes an old typewriter she got as a gift from her   
   parents when she was in the first grade.   
      
   "Someone asked me the other day if I was writing press releases back   
   then," she said with a laugh. "I wasn't one to go to tea parties and all   
   of that. I started doing it, and the further I went the more I wanted to   
   see what I could do with it."   
      
   There's also the banjo Scruggs' father, a cotton farmer, played around   
   the house; the cover of the seminal 1963 bluegrass album "Flatt &   
   Scruggs at Carnegie Hall"; a 45 rpm record of the duo's No. 1 hit "The   
   Ballad of Jed Clampett" from the Beverly Hillbillies TV show;" and the   
   Grammy he won for "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," a song used in the 1967   
   movie "Bonnie and Clyde" then re-recorded for the 2001 all-star tribute   
   "Earl Scruggs and Friends."   
      
   Scruggs calls "The Beverly Hillbillies" a turning point. Besides the   
   theme song, the duo also recorded other music for the show and made   
   guest appearances.   
      
   But Louise Scruggs at first turned down the offer to participate because   
   she objected to the derogatory term "hillbilly" and feared the series   
   would stereotype rural Southerners. She changed her mind after producers   
   sent her a pilot episode.   
      
   As a musician, Scruggs hallmark is the three-fingered roll or "Scruggs   
   style" of playing he developed when he was just a boy. The technique,   
   which uses the thumb, index and middle finger, is widely credited with   
   giving bluegrass its distinctive sound.   
      
   "It came to me almost like a dream," Scruggs said. "I still play that   
   way today."   
      
   Country musician and singer Marty Stuart, who appeared on the "Earl   
   Scruggs and Friends" album, said Scruggs raised the profile of the banjo.   
      
   "Before Earl the banjo was always kind of viewed as a minstrel   
   instrument with a vaudeville or comedic sound," Stuart said. "He brought   
   the banjo to the light of serious music. In my opinion he made the banjo   
   credible in a way that it had never been credible before."   
      
   Yet another $.02 worth from a Bluegrass music fan since in the womb and   
   proud owner of a Martin D-28DM, vintage D-18, vintage Gibson J-45 and a   
   Gibson RB-3 wreath...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)