Scruggs revisits Ryman to mark what's considered 65th anniversary of bluegrass

By Chris Talbott (CP) –
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It's been nearly 65 years, but Tut Taylor still vividly remembers the night Earl Scruggs changed it all.
It was Dec. 8, 1945, and Taylor was by his radio in Georgia listening to the Grand Ole Opry from the Ryman Auditorium, as usual. He was a big Bill Monroe fan and that night the Kentuckian's Blue Grass Boys featured a brand new, 21-year-old banjo player who favoured the three-finger picking style.
It wasn't exactly a new way to play the banjo. Others had used it and had even played the style on the radio.
No one played it like Earl Scruggs, though.
Add Monroe's mandolin and Lester Flatt's guitar and it made such an impression that Taylor has no problem remembering most of the details all these decades later — though the name of that first song escapes him.
"That whole Opry House just come alive and I thought it was going to explode," said Taylor, a mandolin and dobro player who has become a friend of Scruggs. "The Opry House is like a guitar box. It absorbs sounds and makes them sound better. Well, that night you could almost see the walls going in and out from the volume of hands clapping and screaming and hollering. It was maybe a lot like some of the rock 'n' roll things they had, you know. But this was a new sound, it was a pretty sound and a welcome sound."
Scruggs, now 86, will commemorate the 65th anniversary of that night ... Read more.