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Authors: Colin Escott
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the first banjo picker with me. I’d heard the banjo back in Kentucky, and I wanted
it in with the fiddle and the rest of the , instruments. Stringbean give us a touch of the banjo, but he quit. He went into ” the service. When I heard Earl, I knew the banjo picking would fit my music. He could take lead breaks like the fiddle. Without
bluegrass, the banjo never would have amounted to anything. It was on its way out. Fiddlers would have been mighty scarce
without bluegrass, too
RICKY SKAGGS,
Opry star:
He was looking for a sound he could call his own, and with the addition of Flatt and Scruggs, his music had the drive that
he’d been looking for. It had taken a while, but he’d found his sound. It was old-time music on steroids. It was old, but
it was cutting edge. It would please the old-timers, but it appealed to a younger generation, too. The gospel quartet numbers
really solidified their following. They may not have lived the life they were singing about, but, man, could they sing about
it.
JAKE LAMBERT,
bluegrass musician:
Monroe’s band became one of the hottest groups working the Opry. Bill purchased a stretch automobile and they were on the
road almost seven days a week. When they finished a Friday night show they would head for Nashville and the Opry. Most of
the time they would leave as soon as the Opry was over and travel the rest of the night to do a Sunday matinee—maybe four
hundred miles away. Flatt said that there were many times [his wife] Gladys would bring his clothes to the Opry and he would
never go home. For both Lester and Earl, the road seemed to be endless. The personnel of the Blue Grass Boys in 1946 and’47
was Monroe, Flatt, Scruggs, Chubby Wise, and Howard Watts. This band would go down in bluegrass history as being probably
the best ever assembled.
After just two years, Flatt and Scruggs became disenchanted.
JAKE LAMBERT:
Flatt and Scruggs, as well as the rest of the boys, were making about sixty dollars a week, and that wasn’t bad money, except
for the long hours. Earl was the only one in the group with a high school education, and he took care of the money. He told
me that on many Saturdays, when the Blue Grass Boys rolled into Nashville for the Grand Ole Opry, he would be carrying between
five to seven thousand dollars. So both Flatt and Scruggs could see where the money was. They knew it would never be as sidemen.
In 1948, Flatt and Scruggs left to form their own band, but Bill Monroe recruited literally hundreds more Blue Grass Boys.
Many, like Flatt and Scruggs, would eventually lead their own bands, and some would attempt to take bluegrass in new directions,
but Bill Monroe’s vision of his music was unbending, and he would always remain caustic and dismissive of those who deviated
from it.
BILL ANDERSON,
Opry star:
The thing about Bill Monroe and his music is that he was very creative and flexible to a point, and then he became very rigid.
I watched him one time in the dressing room. He was working on a new song, an instrumental. The Blue Grass Boys were feeling
their way through it, improvising and changing it, but once they got it to where he liked it, he didn’t want it changed at
all. He let his guys be flexible until they got it to where he wanted it, then he set it in concrete.
Minnie Pearl: November 1940
Opry stars had told jokes... plenty of them, but there had been few comedians on the show until Sarah Ophelia Colley brought
her alter ego, Minnie Pearl, to the Opry stage. Born into a prosperous middle-class family, Sarah Colley aspired to be a professional
actor until she developed her Minnie Pearl character on the rural theater circuit. In the fall of 1940, she appeared as Minnie
Pearl at a bankers’ convention in her hometown, Centerville, Tennessee.
MINNIE PEARL:
I got a call from Harry Stone. He said that Bob Turner, a Nashville banker who was a friend of my father’s, had seen me do
a country girl
it in with the fiddle and the rest of the , instruments. Stringbean give us a touch of the banjo, but he quit. He went into ” the service. When I heard Earl, I knew the banjo picking would fit my music. He could take lead breaks like the fiddle. Without
bluegrass, the banjo never would have amounted to anything. It was on its way out. Fiddlers would have been mighty scarce
without bluegrass, too
RICKY SKAGGS,
Opry star:
He was looking for a sound he could call his own, and with the addition of Flatt and Scruggs, his music had the drive that
he’d been looking for. It had taken a while, but he’d found his sound. It was old-time music on steroids. It was old, but
it was cutting edge. It would please the old-timers, but it appealed to a younger generation, too. The gospel quartet numbers
really solidified their following. They may not have lived the life they were singing about, but, man, could they sing about
it.
JAKE LAMBERT,
bluegrass musician:
Monroe’s band became one of the hottest groups working the Opry. Bill purchased a stretch automobile and they were on the
road almost seven days a week. When they finished a Friday night show they would head for Nashville and the Opry. Most of
the time they would leave as soon as the Opry was over and travel the rest of the night to do a Sunday matinee—maybe four
hundred miles away. Flatt said that there were many times [his wife] Gladys would bring his clothes to the Opry and he would
never go home. For both Lester and Earl, the road seemed to be endless. The personnel of the Blue Grass Boys in 1946 and’47
was Monroe, Flatt, Scruggs, Chubby Wise, and Howard Watts. This band would go down in bluegrass history as being probably
the best ever assembled.
After just two years, Flatt and Scruggs became disenchanted.
JAKE LAMBERT:
Flatt and Scruggs, as well as the rest of the boys, were making about sixty dollars a week, and that wasn’t bad money, except
for the long hours. Earl was the only one in the group with a high school education, and he took care of the money. He told
me that on many Saturdays, when the Blue Grass Boys rolled into Nashville for the Grand Ole Opry, he would be carrying between
five to seven thousand dollars. So both Flatt and Scruggs could see where the money was. They knew it would never be as sidemen.
In 1948, Flatt and Scruggs left to form their own band, but Bill Monroe recruited literally hundreds more Blue Grass Boys.
Many, like Flatt and Scruggs, would eventually lead their own bands, and some would attempt to take bluegrass in new directions,
but Bill Monroe’s vision of his music was unbending, and he would always remain caustic and dismissive of those who deviated
from it.
BILL ANDERSON,
Opry star:
The thing about Bill Monroe and his music is that he was very creative and flexible to a point, and then he became very rigid.
I watched him one time in the dressing room. He was working on a new song, an instrumental. The Blue Grass Boys were feeling
their way through it, improvising and changing it, but once they got it to where he liked it, he didn’t want it changed at
all. He let his guys be flexible until they got it to where he wanted it, then he set it in concrete.
Minnie Pearl: November 1940
Opry stars had told jokes... plenty of them, but there had been few comedians on the show until Sarah Ophelia Colley brought
her alter ego, Minnie Pearl, to the Opry stage. Born into a prosperous middle-class family, Sarah Colley aspired to be a professional
actor until she developed her Minnie Pearl character on the rural theater circuit. In the fall of 1940, she appeared as Minnie
Pearl at a bankers’ convention in her hometown, Centerville, Tennessee.
MINNIE PEARL:
I got a call from Harry Stone. He said that Bob Turner, a Nashville banker who was a friend of my father’s, had seen me do
a country girl
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