Foggy Mountain Boys
Flatt & Scruggs were an American bluegrass duo, which was from 1948 to 1969 successfully.
- 2.1 Singles
- 2.2 EPs
- 2.3 albums
Career
Foundation
Lester Flatt Raimond ( born June 19, 1914 Overton County, Tennessee, † May 11, 1979 in Nashville ) and Earl Eugene Scruggs (* January 6, 1924 in Shelby, North Carolina, † March 28, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee) learned to know each other in the band of Bill Monroe and left in 1948 shortly after the other to act as a duo with a backing band called the Foggy Mountain Boys. They named the band after a popular piece of the Carter Family Foggy Mountain Top. The founding members were Mac Wiseman, Jim Shumate on fiddle and Howard Watts ( artist name Cedric Rainwater ) on bass. Scruggs played the three -finger banjo style, with whom he had a decisive influence on the bluegrass music before. Flatt & Scruggs preferred a harder sound than Bill Monroe, Flatts was the tenor voice only soft. The author Jack Hurst wrote that they do not simply copied only Monroe's music, but renewed.
Rise
When Jim Shumate in 1948 left the band, he was initially replaced by type Wooten. His successor was the same year Benny Sims. The Foggy Mountain Breakdown of one of their most popular pieces on, - In 1949, the band recorded - with Flatt, Scruggs, Sims, Curly Seekler on mandolin and Howard Watts. It was thus known that Warren Beatty Scruggs asked to compose a theme song for the film Bonnie and Clyde, and Scruggs chose for this piece. End of 1950, Sims left the band again. Mid -1950s, replaced Flatt and Scruggs the mandolin by a Buck Graves ( " Uncle Josh " ) played Dobro.
In 1954 she had a TV show, which aired on more than 40 programs. " The first country musician with a merged syndicated television show," Scruggs said. One of the sponsors was Martha White, known for the " Martha White Theme ". In January 1955, they are members of the Grand Ole Opry, but it took a few weeks, until they were respected there by the other artists. With The Ballad of Jed Clampett, they were able in 1962 to achieve a number-one hit on the country charts, which no artist had previously been successful with bluegrass music.
Towards the middle to late 1960s they began to, among others, Nashville Sound to experiment drums and gospel harmony vocals; especially older bluegrass fans were disappointed, even if the friends of the old-time country music felt addressed. Flatt & Scruggs parted 1969 due to artistic differences.