Goodbye Earl

Posted on March 30, 2012 by myiq2xu (D)

Banjo legend Earl Scruggs passed away Wednesday:

It may be impossible to overstate the importance of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to American music. A pioneering banjo player who helped create modern country music, his sound is instantly recognizable and as intrinsically wrapped in the tapestry of the genre as Johnny Cash’s baritone or Hank Williams’ heartbreak.

Scruggs died Wednesday morning at age 88 of natural causes. The legacy he helped build with bandleader Bill Monroe, guitarist Lester Flatt and the rest of the Blue Grass Boys was evident all around Nashville, where he died in an area hospital. His string-bending, mind-blowing way of picking helped transform a regional sound into a national passion.

If you’re anywhere near my age you grew up listening to his music every day.

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55 Responses

  1. myiq2xu, on March 30, 2012 at 3:27 am said:

    F*%king WordPiss changed its format again without even warning us.

  2. Lulu, on March 30, 2012 at 7:13 am said:

    My late father claimed that my first concert attendance of live performance music was Flatt and Scruggs, Ernest Tubb, and the Sons of the Pioneers at the Louisiana Hayride when I was four. Dad had an enormous collection of 45s and albums performed by this wonderful musician as well as others from the 40′s and 50′s of bluegrass, western swing, and “cowboy” ballads. Earl Scrugg’s helped change bluegrass from a little known regional music to the internationally recognized cultural gem that we know today.

  3. Lulu, on March 30, 2012 at 7:30 am said:

    Since this is an open thread, this piece from the WP is very interesting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/george-zimmermans-crumbling-story-part-3-the-detective/2012/03/29/gIQA3NvAjS_blog.html?hpid=z7
    “Serino didn’t believe Zimmerman’s version of events and recommended a manslaughter charge. But he was overruled. And according to a report from Joy-Ann Reid of the Grio yesterday, the decision came from atop the law enforcement food chain: the state attorney.
    A source with knowledge of the investigation into the shooting of Trayvon Martin tells the Grio that it was then Sanford police chief Bill Lee, along with Capt. Robert O’Connor, the investigations supervisor, who made the decision to release George Zimmerman on the night of February 26th, after consulting with State Attorney Norman Wolfinger — in person.
    Wolfinger told Serino that he didn’t think there was enough evidence to charge Zimmerman. According to ABC News, Serino then filed an affidavit the night of Feb. 26 stating he didn’t believe Zimmerman. And we are now finding out that Serino then set out to bring the neighborhood watch volunteer to justice.
    In an interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton and later with Lawrence O’Donnell, Cheryl Brown, the mother of a 13-year-old eyewitness said that Serino told her that he didn’t believe Zimmerman’s self-defense claim.”

    Is this true? Did a police officer disagree with the prosecutor and then criticize him to the witnesses and say he did not believe Zimmerman so that witness could in turn go on television and say this. I am sure police disagree with prosecutors all of the time, and vice versa, but cops do not prosecute, they investigate and gather evidence. What on earth is going on here? Is this common? Did the witness misunderstand the investigating cop?

    • DeniseVB, on March 30, 2012 at 7:47 am said:

      WaPo-Sharpton-O’Donnell ? Yikes, it must be true ;)

      I can’t wait for this thing to get to court so we can start hearing all these things under oath.

      • Lulu, on March 30, 2012 at 8:15 am said:

        It almost seems like a game of telephone. Witnesses talking to everyone before they might testify in court is not so good. Cops criticizing prosecutors to witnesses who then pass it on to a victims family. I think I am starting to see how this all headed south so fast. Does anyone know what they are talking about? No wonder people are confused including me.

    • DandyTiger, on March 30, 2012 at 7:51 am said:

      That’s especially bad given the race riot atmosphere.

  4. gram cracker, on March 30, 2012 at 8:34 am said:

    Here is Flatt and Scruggs’s rendition of an early Bluegrass number “That Good Old Mountain Dew”. Mountain Dew was written by Bascom Lamar Lunsford, an attorney in North Carolina who had represented moonshiners in court. Bascom sold this song for $25 to Scotty Wiseman for bus fare back home from Chicago. Scotty recorded it using lyrics he and Lulu Belle wrote.

    Before he was an attorney Lunsford was a fruit tree salesman. As he traveled the Appalachians he wrote down the music that had been handed down orally through the generations. His work is in the Smithsonian.

    Lunsford also started and directed the nation’s oldest folk festival in 1928, currently billed as the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina. It is a good one if you like Bluegrass music.

    Bascom was a distant relative on my father’s side. I grew up listening to bluegrass from my father’s side and religious, classical music and opera from my classically trained mother’s side. We were dirt poor but musically rich.

  5. gram cracker, on March 30, 2012 at 8:49 am said:

    My nephew makes his living building and selling banjos and parts on ebay and through his website. Using a wood lathe he turns out beautiful banjo pots. Here is an interview of him from 1986.

  7. DeniseVB, on March 30, 2012 at 10:11 am said:

    Nikki Haley, a strong, conservative governor with lady parts, must be destroyed next !

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/03/30/gov-nikki-haley-isnt-sikh-sy-and-she-knows-it/

  8. WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 10:48 am said:

    This is just fucking insane. Our soldiers in Afghanistan now have to be guarded while they sleep, advised to carry weapons inside Afghan ministries, and turn all their desks to face the door while working in buildings populated by our “allies”.

    We’ve spent all this time, money and blood trying to train up and partner with Afghan defense forces – who are now using that training and close relationship to kill our guys.

    GET. THEM. THE. HELL. OUT. of that hopeless shithole. They are not our friends, and they have age-old problems of their own that have kept them killing each other for decades, LONG before we came along. That we cannot solve, and shouldn’t try. Not our problem. Get the hell out. And frankly, I don’t care if the whole area descends into utter barbarism and they all slaughter each other to their heart’s content for another hundred years. Sad, and I’m sorry for many of the Afghan innocents (especially women) who will suffer, but not our problem. Get the hell out.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9174294/Guardian-angels-assigned-to-watch-over-US-troops-in-Afghanistan.html

  9. HELENK, on March 30, 2012 at 10:53 am said:

    for one hour people working together. tomorrow Saturday March 30 between 8:30pm and 9:30pm world wide turning off lights to save the enviroment.
    It might be just a symbol, but the fact that people from different countries can come together for something is a great thing

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/30/earth-hour-from-space

  14. HELENK, on March 30, 2012 at 1:17 pm said:

    any bets on how long this cruise line will stay in business??

    another ship fire in engine room. running on generators

    http://www.azamaraclubcruises.com/about-azamara/travel-alerts

  15. WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 1:50 pm said:

    BWAHAHAHA!!! Just saw on Twitter that Current TV is terminating Keefie Olbermann?

    *snerk* Good riddance. Sorry asshole couldn’t even make it on that poor excuse for a “network”.

    • WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 1:50 pm said:
    • DeniseVB, on March 30, 2012 at 1:54 pm said:

      Keefie is a high maintenance child. Like Rosie. Like Obama. All have a history of “not getting along with others”, so it doesn’t surprise me when I read about their failures.

      • WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 1:59 pm said:

        BWAHAHAHA! Current had this to say:

        We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.”

        WHAT??? Big egomaniac tantrum-throwing Keefie was perhaps not collegiate and respectful? Who’da thunk?

        • DeniseVB, on March 30, 2012 at 2:22 pm said:

          What was I thinking? I was a charter member of the KOEB at DU for YEARS, that is, the Keith Olbermann Estrogen Brigade. We had coffee cups made…(heart)KOEB. We gave them out like the 60′s daisies in rifle barrels, it was all peace, love and hatin’ Bush in the 00′s.

          Then he took Hillary into a closet….WTF?

        • Oswald, on March 30, 2012 at 2:42 pm said:

          I didn’t get MSNBC on my cable package until 2009. Back then I used to hear how great KO was but never watched him. By the time I started getting MSNBC I didn’t want to watch him.

    • HELENK, on March 30, 2012 at 5:17 pm said:

      http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/current-tv-dismisses-keith-olbermann/

      here is a link to the story

      keith gets taken to the woodshed and does not come out

  16. WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 2:22 pm said:

    Gaia is punishing Keefers for his large dumbass footprint.

  18. WMCB, on March 30, 2012 at 2:45 pm said:
  22. HELENK, on March 30, 2012 at 6:30 pm said:

    I would like everyone to see this video and pass it on

    one because it is good

    two because naomi wolf wants it boycotted

    http://nation.foxnews.com/katy-perry/2012/03/30/left-calls-katy-perry-boycott-over-marine-video

  23. HELENK, on March 30, 2012 at 6:54 pm said:

    http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Suspects-Detained-in-Palmdale-Hate-Crime-Police-145249205.html#comments

    here are 6 kids who may have their lives ruined and a seventh who was beaten.
    with the al sharptons and his ilk egging on things like this many more kids will be hurt.

    in a race war nobody wins

  24. threewickets, on March 30, 2012 at 9:12 pm said:

  25. HELENK, on March 31, 2012 at 3:59 am said:

    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/03/30/Sharpton-Civil-Disobedience

    how many will this man hurt with his race baiting? he makes me sick

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