Posted on 03/03/2006 8:39:57 AM PST by Borges
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) - Louise Scruggs, the wife and manager of legendary banjo player Earl Scruggs who helped expand the audience for bluegrass music, has died. She was 78.
Mrs. Scruggs died Thursday, her family said. She had been treated for respiratory disease. The couple married in 1948, two years after they met while he was performing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville with bluegrass founder Bill Monroe and she was a member of the audience.
After Scruggs left the Monroe band to form Flatt & Scruggs with guitarist and singer Lester Flatt, Mrs. Scruggs took over managing their bookings and business dealings in 1955, forming the Scruggs Talent Agency Inc.
"She was the first professional manager in country music as well as being the first woman," Mick Buck of the Country Music Hall of Fame told The Associated Press last year. "She had a huge role in advancing their career behind the scenes."
Scruggs' three-finger banjo picking style invigorated country music, a term he and she preferred over bluegrass.
Mrs. Scruggs saw opportunities to expand Scruggs' audience beyond country and bluegrass, first with the folk movement of the 1950s and early '60s and later with the hippie movement that included bookings at the Miami Pop Festival and college rock concerts.
"She truly is one of the legendary icons behind the scenes of country music," country artist Dwight Yoakam said. "She didn't take the curtain calls, but a lot of us would never have heard Flatt & Scruggs if it hadn't been for Louise Scruggs."
Mrs. Scruggs almost rejected the chance for Flatt & Scruggs to record one of their best-known songs, The Ballad of Jed Clampett that served as the theme for the hit 1960s TV comedy series The Beverly Hillbillies.
She objected to the derogatory term "hillbilly" and feared the series would stereotype rural Southerners. She changed her mind after producers sent her the pilot episode.
Mrs. Scruggs also helped strike the deal that put the Flatt & Scruggs instrumental Foggy Mountain Breakdown on the soundtrack for the 1967 Oscar-winning movie Bonnie and Clyde.
"She advanced me and advanced our music," Earl Scruggs told The Tennessean newspaper last year. "I didn't get where I went just on talent. What talent I had would never have peaked without her. She helped shape music up as a business, instead of just people out picking and grinning."
When Flatt & Scruggs broke up in 1969, Mrs. Scruggs took over managing her husband's expansion into other musical genres, including the Earl Scruggs Revue band with their sons Gary, Randy and Steve.
She usually accompanied her husband on interviews with reporters, and he turned to her for help in recalling names and dates.
Louise Scruggs was born in 1927 and grew up in rural Wilson County just east of Nashville. She said one of her favourite gifts as a child was a typewriter, which helped fuel her resolve to leave the country for a city job.
That typewriter was among the items displayed in a Country Music Hall of Fame tribute to the Scruggses last year.
Besides her husband, survivors include sons Gary and Randy.
I saw the Earl Scruggs Review back in about 1978. It was a good show.
Funny that Louise Scruggs almost nixed the recording her husband became most famous for.
Believe it or not someone actually has him in the Howie Carr Show's Death Pool.
God bless the Scruggs family at their loss. Flatt and Scruggs are a part of blue grass history in a great part do to this woman.
Will plunk something on my Washburn five string in memory.
Does this mean we can have a state funeral, complete with Jimmy Carter hurling insults at the President?
I thought Earl Scruggs passed away a few years ago. What I wouldn't give to learn from him one-on-one. I would almost give my right arm, but that would be self-defeating when playing the banjo.
Condolences to the Scruggs family. Earl is a true revolutionary in music. Louise helped bring his music to the people.
That is why a wife should be involved in the logistics, but not in the artistic side. It also shows how a wife who is supportive of her husband will enable him to excel beyond his and her wildest dreams.
Greatly exaggerated.
On her way to Hillbilly Heaven. I really like that song, havent heard it lately. Tex Ritter sang it I think.
Man!! those were the days when we had real Country music.
I just realized this is a month old. I posted it mistakenly thinking it was current news. Feel free to delete this 'old news' thread.
Mrs. Scruggs passed away on February 1, 2006.
Yep. I'm a fool.
She died ONE MONTH AGO on February 3. What is with you?
no way! cool, somebody actually won that thing?
Rest in peace Louise. Condolences to Earle.
Our local "Classic country" radio station, was given over to the dark side just before the '04 elections. It is now home to Err Amerika. I loved that station, it played work every day, all day. I had to switch to conservative talk radio now, I am better informed, but not as happy during work.
Whats even worse if you get Sirius you help support Howard Stern.
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