09-29-2016, 04:16 PM
Scruggs and Flatt:
Lots of people know that Earl Srcuggs and Lester Flatt, they played and sang the theme song from Beverly Hillbillies. Some know that Earl Scruggs single-handedly created the three-finger banjo picking style. It just came to him, one day, he said, while practicing a song. Before that "frailing" or playing it like a rhythm guitar was the way to play a banjo. Early had learned at the knee of Bill Monroe, the "father" of bluegrass.
Anyway, so some years ago I was sharing drinks with a bartender in a small bar in Calistoga, CA, where the hot springs are. And he was a literary type and so we were talking about some books and he mentioned that Jerry Garcia had been his hired banjo teacher in San Francisco when Jerry was a member of "Somebody's" Jug Band, before the Grateful Dead was born. Jerry was teaching banjo to pay the rent.
And I'm assuming this part. Jerry was a young and ambitious as a musician, and would have doubtless heard of Earl Scruggs revolution on the banjo, and most probably employed it, and the Hillbillies would have been running then too. An if you listen to the theme song on Hillbillies you--I think I can--hear some of the constant swing and sway of the picking style Jerry employed in hiis unique guitar rambles. Earl said to be innovative you had to let loose and not think about it, but to make it stick you had to bring it back, and that's one pretty good description of Jerry's guitar folk/blues/rock lead rambles.
Spankster
Lots of people know that Earl Srcuggs and Lester Flatt, they played and sang the theme song from Beverly Hillbillies. Some know that Earl Scruggs single-handedly created the three-finger banjo picking style. It just came to him, one day, he said, while practicing a song. Before that "frailing" or playing it like a rhythm guitar was the way to play a banjo. Early had learned at the knee of Bill Monroe, the "father" of bluegrass.
Anyway, so some years ago I was sharing drinks with a bartender in a small bar in Calistoga, CA, where the hot springs are. And he was a literary type and so we were talking about some books and he mentioned that Jerry Garcia had been his hired banjo teacher in San Francisco when Jerry was a member of "Somebody's" Jug Band, before the Grateful Dead was born. Jerry was teaching banjo to pay the rent.
And I'm assuming this part. Jerry was a young and ambitious as a musician, and would have doubtless heard of Earl Scruggs revolution on the banjo, and most probably employed it, and the Hillbillies would have been running then too. An if you listen to the theme song on Hillbillies you--I think I can--hear some of the constant swing and sway of the picking style Jerry employed in hiis unique guitar rambles. Earl said to be innovative you had to let loose and not think about it, but to make it stick you had to bring it back, and that's one pretty good description of Jerry's guitar folk/blues/rock lead rambles.
Spankster