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Earl Scruggs: A Bluegrass Banjo Legend

David Hoffman
Earl Scruggs and his sons playing with Bob Dylan.

Earl Scruggs is considered one of the most influential banjo players of all time. He made a name for himself performing with Bill Monroe’s band on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in the mid-1940s. Scruggs went on to compose seminal records like “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.”

The new book “Earl Scruggs: Banjo Icon” (Rowman & Littlefield/2017) traces Scrugg’s story from his origins on a farm outside Shelby, North Carolina, to his rise as a bluegrass icon. Host Frank Stasio talks with the book’s co-author Gordon Castelnero. Castelnero reads Saturday, May 6 at the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, N.C at 2 p.m.

Charlie Shelton-Ormond is a podcast producer for WUNC.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.