Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Out to Follow Scruggs's Path
2. "I grew up around a banjo"
3. The Piedmont's Rich Musical Soil
4. Early Professional Days
5. Joining Bill Monroe
6. Working as a Blue Grass Boy
7. Flatt and Scruggs Build a Career
8. Recording "Foggy Mountain Breakdown"
9. "Like a Jackhammer" - How the Tune Works
10. The Number-One Banjo Player
11. The Beverly Hillbillies Welcomes the Banjo
12. Riding with Bonnie and Clyde
13. Scruggs without Flatt: A Period of Transition
14. Scruggs's Banjo Gains a Cult Following
15. Reaping the Harvest
Notes
Index
About the author
Thomas Goldsmith
Summary
Recorded in 1949, Foggy Mountain Breakdown changed the face of American music. Earl Scruggs's instrumental essentially transformed the folk culture that came before it while helping to energize bluegrass's entry into the mainstream in the 1960s. The song has become a gateway to bluegrass for musicians and fans alike as well as a happily inescapable track in film and television. Thomas Goldsmith explores the origins and influence of Foggy Mountain Breakdown against the backdrop of Scruggs's legendary career. Interviews with Scruggs, his wife Louise, disciple Bela Fleck, and sidemen like Curly Seckler, Mac Wiseman, and Jerry Douglas shed light on topics like Scruggs's musical evolution and his working relationship with Bill Monroe. As Goldsmith shows, the captivating sound of Foggy Mountain Breakdown helped bring back the banjo from obscurity and distinguished the low-key Scruggs as a principal figure in American acoustic music.Passionate and long overdue, Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown takes readers on an ear-opening journey into two minutes and forty-three seconds of heaven.
