B?©la and Earl
BMI’s Music World, an online publication of the venerable performing rights organization, has a new article up that features an interview of Earl Scruggs by B?©la Fleck.
They plug the interview as being about composing – not surprising since they are both BMI writers – but the pair of banjo pickers covered a good bit of ground in their brief exchange.
BF: So back before, when you were just working on your banjo playing on your own, how much would you play? What was the typical day of playing?
ES: Well, that varied‚ĶI was in school‚Ķwe were on the farm‚Ķwe’d have to milk cows, feed the mules and slop the hogs, as they call it, and if you had any time left, you’d probably get in a few minutes with the banjo‚Ķ
I was sitting picking one day, and I’d pick with thumb and index finger‚Ķand all of a sudden, I was adding that one-two-three thing‚Ķand I thought, "Dang, that sounds good." My oldest brother‚Ķhe didn’t know I could pick with three fingers on that banjo‚Ķhe said, "Is that all you can pick?" A little streak of electricity went up my spine. I didn’t know if I could pick anything else or not.
Great stuff. Read the full interview online.
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[...] with Fleck (not Flatt) and Scruggs Posted on April 8, 2009 by DJB Thanks to the wonderful Bluegrass Blog for highlighting a recent online interview between banjo masters Earl Scruggs and Bela Fleck.  [...]
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