Welcome to the Earl Scruggs Center’s Virtual Field Trip
Earl Scruggs Center Oral History Project
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Who was Earl Scruggs?
•Earl Eugene Scruggs was born on January 6, 1924 in Flint Hill, a small community in Cleveland County. Flint Hill is located approximately 10 minutes away from the Center.
•Legendary 5-string banjo picker, known for his “Scruggs-Style” pickin’ and one of the architects of the genre known as “Bluegrass.” He started playing banjo at the age of 4.
•Before becoming a professional musician, Earl worked full time at Lily Mill for 40 cents an hour and enjoyed the job. However, it didn’t take long for him to realize that he could make more playing music.
•His music was featured in the film “Bonnie & Clyde” and tv-show “The Beverly Hillbillies”
Akonting
•African instrument
•Made from a gourd and animal skin
•Two long melody strings and one shorter sting
Banjo
•Can have four or five strings
•Body is round and made with animal skin or parchment
•Can add resonator to amplify the sound
•Played in a form of down-picking
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Fun Fact:�By the 1920’s, NC had 351 textile mills!
Isaac Shelby
Shelby was named after Colonel Isaac Shelby who led the Overmountain Men to victory at the Battle of Kings Mountain, a turning point of the Revolutionary War.
Benjamin Cleveland
Cleveland County was named after Col. Benjamin Cleveland who blew his horn to summon some 200 Wilkes County militiamen. He led them in the Battle of Kings Mountain. Cleveland claimed British Maj. Patrick Ferguson's �white stallion as a �"war prize" and rode it �home to his estate of �Roundabout.
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Mineral Springs
Mineral springs flowed throughout the Piedmont and many people believed the water in Cleveland County to have medicinal and healing properties.
In 1774, John Wilson acquired a land grant on the lower part of Tryon County that is now Shelby, NC. Wilson’s son built a hotel near the springs. In the early 1800s, guests came from across the South to collect water in large glass jugs to use for its medicinal powers.
Louise Scruggs
Anne "Louise" Certain Scruggs was a woman ahead of her time. When she began managing Flatt & Scruggs in 1955, the role of a professional manager was a new concept. Not only was she a woman in a high-powered business position, she was also molding an entire profession.
She understood the importance of 'branding' long before it was recognized as a common business strategy. She had Flatt & Scruggs classified as country music rather than bluegrass to avoid being passed over by some stations and to increase their radio play. It was Louise who hired the artist Thomas B. Allen to create original covers for seventeen of Flatt & Scruggs' albums, giving them a distinctive look that could be recognized right away.
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Radio
Most early Southern radio stations were small and basic: a microphone in a soundproof room for the announcer and on-air guests, and a sound engineer twisting dials in an adjacent room separated by a window.
The stations gave daily farm and weather reports, interspersed with music, most of it live, with all the spontaneity and glitches of one-take performances.
For musicians, the pay amounted to little or nothing beyond free advertising for the night's show at a local auditorium or schoolhouse. Our local radio station in Cleveland County was known as WOHS.
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The Beverly Hillbillies
On January 19, 1963, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" hit No. 1 on the Billboard country charts. This hit, known to most as The Beverly Hillbillies theme, highlighted the bluegrass stylings of country legends Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.
The Beverly Hillbillies premiered on Sept. 25, 1962, and the single debuted on the charts just a few months later, on Dec. 8, 1962.
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Grand Ole Opry
The birth of bluegrass music took place in Nashville, TN, on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium on December 8, 1945, when 21-year-old Earl Scruggs took the stage for his debut with Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys.
At the opening notes of Scruggs’ first solo break on his 5-string banjo, the Grand Ole Opry audience came alive. The sound was so different from the other styles traditionally heard from string bands of the day that the banjo seemed like a new instrument.
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Lifetime Achievements
Dozens of recordings and awards over the years testify to Earl Scruggs' popularity and artistic achievement. He can be heard on many 78 rpm records released before the era of 33 1/3 rpm LPs. Even after LPs began selling in 1948, the recording industry took a long time to put bluegrass music on them. It wasn't until 1957 that Columbia Records released Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs's first album, Foggy Mountain Jamboree. After that, the Flatt and Scruggs band, featuring the two leaders in their trademark hats and string ties, became familiar faces in country music record bins. LPs and CDs from the Earl Scruggs Revue and its successors, featuring various lineups of family, sidemen, and guest stars, followed. Scruggs received four Grammy awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a National Medal of Arts. He became a member of the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame, and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Fun Fact: The actual weight of the GRAMMY Award is four pounds and four ounces.
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David Lee & The Constellations
An interracial band that performed in the Shelby area, the Constellations played love ballads while enduring taunts and threats of physical violence. David Lee recorded six of their songs at the Washington Sound, his local recording studio and record store.
Mr. Lee’s work is part of an important tradition of locally based, independent record labels and stories that were the heart of African-American musical expression in North Carolina during the mid to late 20th century.
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Banjo
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Two-Finger Pickin’
Three-Finger Pickin’
Clawhammer�Pickin’
Acoustic Guitar
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Fiddle
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Mandolin
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Dobro
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