Earl Scruggs

Earl Scruggs is an American bluegrass pioneer, who developed and popularized the three-finger style of banjo picking, now almost universally used by bluegrass players and known as "Scruggs' style". Scruggs got his start playing the banjo for Bill Monroe's already popular group the "Blue Grass Boys" in 1945. Three years later he left and partnered with guitarist Lester Flatt to form the Foggy Mountain Boys, later known simply as Flatt and Scruggs, with whom he performed for more than twenty years. The duo were great stars of bluegrass during this period, and were later jointly inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Scruggs authored numerous works that would go on to become bluegrass standards, including "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett".