Category: Bluegrass

Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, Creativity, Culture, Death, Doc Watson, Folk, Modern Life, Music1 Comment

Doc, Doug and Earl…Bluegrass Goodbyes

Gary Furr

A few days ago, I wrote about the too-soon loss of Doug Dillard, an extraordinary banjo player who was a bridge figure between Bill Monroe and the “pure bluegrass” (which is itself an irony, since Monroe was actually an innovator himself.  He took a hodgepodge of what is ssometimes called “old time music,” consisting of fiddle tunes for dancing, old folk tunes, blues and other music that flowed from Appalachia and the south and forged a unique sound dominated by the mandolin and banjo and fiddle.  He was not beyond experimenting himself, even bringing an accordion in a time or … Continue reading Doc, Doug and Earl…Bluegrass Goodbyes

Andy Griffith, Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, Creativity, Dillard and Clark, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Music, The Dillards, The Dillards7 Comments

Doug, Doc and Earl…Bluegrass Breakdown and Cry

Gary Furr

The Darling Boys are no more This has been one of the unkindest of years in acoustic music.  First, Earl Scruggs, the Founding Father of bluegrass banjo, passed away (read my post on Earl’s death here CLICK)  back in March.  Then a few weeks ago, Doug Dillard, a rollicking banjo player who blazed a trail with the banjo across genres in the 1970s when he left the Dillards to join Gene Clark of the Byrds to form Dillard and Clark. Of course, you’d know old Doug for another reason, if you ever watched the Andy Griffith Show.  He was the … Continue reading Doug, Doc and Earl…Bluegrass Breakdown and Cry

Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Country Music, Creativity, Earl Scruggs, Music, Old-time music

Farewell, Earl Scruggs, and Thank You

Gary Furr
1964, on top of the world, with Lester Flatt

Earl Scruggs, “pioneer” as the Huffington Post put it,  of the Three-finger Banjo style, has died.  For some of us, he has been a mentor and inspiration our whole lives.   He was not merely a pioneer, he was the King.  And there are many legends on the banjo–Bela Fleck, Ralph Stanley, Jens Kruger, Don Reno, J. D. Crowe, and many greats.  But no one like Earl.

As a displaced North Carolina boy moving around the country, my Dad kept me connected to music.  He had a Silvertone electric guitar from Sears and a Harmony archtop acoustic guitar.  The electric would shock you if you played in bare feet on the garage floor so I tended to play the acoustic.  I didn’t know much about Earl Scruggs, but I kept running into him over the years.

When we moved to Irving, Texas in the late Sixties, I learned to play very slow rhythm guitar to a very slow “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” (LISTEN) with my seventh grade friend,  Brad Phillips, who was the odd combination of a banjo playing Episcopalian. Continue reading “Farewell, Earl Scruggs, and Thank You”

Bluegrass, Country Music, Death, Environment, Ethics, Music, Old-time music, Technology

Weather or Not

Gary Furr

Weather.  Someone said to me not long ago, “It is humbling to consider that when you come to die, the crowd that day will be determined by the weather and they’ll sum your life up in twenty minutes or less.”  Humbling. “Shelter” is such a “taken for granted” in America that we live more disconnected from the fragility of life as it is exposed to the elements.  It breaks in on us now and then—in California, by earthquake, in other places, snow or tsunami.  Here in the South, we live chronically subject to the tornado and hurricanes. Hurricanes are different … Continue reading Weather or Not

Art, Bluegrass, Christianity, Gospel music, Jesus, Music, Old-time music, Poverty, Prayer, Race, Suffering, Theology and Life2 Comments

“Just a Little Talk With Jesus”

Gary Furr

“Just a Little Talk With Jesus” is a famous old gospel song.  Last night, our band, Shades Mountain Air, had a grand time at the American Gospel Quartet Convention in Birmingham and sang this crowd favorite.  I knew that it was a song that black and white audiences in the South had shared since it was written.  It’s been covered by just about everybody—Bill Gaither, Elvis Presley, the Stanley Brothers, and innumerable mass choirs, quartets and Sunday night gatherings around the piano in little country churches.   (click this link to listen to the song by Shades Mountain Air) It’s so … Continue reading “Just a Little Talk With Jesus”