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.
?It?s not just bluegrass, it?s American music,? bluegrass fan turned country star Dierks Bentley said. ?There?s 17- or 18-year-old kids turning on today?s country music and hearing that banjo and they have no idea where that came from. That sound has probably always been there for them and they don?t realize someone invented that three-finger roll style of playing. You hear it everywhere.?
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