Product Description

One of the greatest albums in the annals of bluegrass music (***** All Music Guide), 1961 s Foggy Mountain Banjo secured Flatt & Scruggs reputation among the burgeoning folk music movement, and set a seldom-surpassed standard for instrumental virtuosity in a genre that prides itself on just that! And it wasn t just Flatt s flatpicking and Scruggs banjo, either; the Foggy Mountain Boys were one smokin backup band, with dobroist Josh Graves, fiddler Paul Warren and drummer Buddy Harman all playing key roles. Includes Ground Speed ; Home Sweet Home ; Sally Ann ; Little Darlin Pal of Mine ; Reuben ; Cripple Creek ; Lonesome Road Blues ; John Henry ; Fireball Mail ; Sally Goodwin ; Bugle Call Rag , and Cumberland Gap . Rich Kienzle adds new liner notes. A Collectors Choice Music exclusive!

Track Listing

1. Ground Speed [Instrumental]
2. Home Sweet Home [Instrumental]
3. Sally Ann
4. Little Darlin' Pal of Mine
5. Reuben
6. Cripple Creek
7. Lonesome Road Blues
8. John Henry
9. Fireball Mail
10. Sally Goodwin'
11. Bugle Call Rag
12. Cumberland Gap

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11829 in Music
• Released on: 2009-10-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .19 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Despite a painfully short running time of 25 minutes, this 1961 landmark remains one of the most important and influential banjo albums ever made. Released at the height of the folk boom, these 12 instrumentals inspired countless college kids to pick up a five-string banjo and try to emulate the great Earl Scruggs's spectacular three-finger attack. Paul Warren's fiddle and Josh Graves's Dobro keep pace with the master, who creates a template for bluegrass banjo. Although there are more definitive and comprehensive Flatt & Scruggs collections available, Foggy Mountain Banjo will always be a perennial favorite thanks to its original timely release and, of course, the timeless music within. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

The basic bluegrass banjo album
If you are a beginning bluegrass banjo player, and you want to know the sound you should strive for, seek no further. This is it right here.

I have played the 5-string banjo for nearly 40 years now, and when I feel like I need a shot of the best, this is the album I play. I learned to play the banjo from this album when it was available only on vinyl. Now I have it on CD.

Earl's tone, steady rhythm and impeccable taste permeates this album completely. This is the basis from which bluegrass banjo is built.

And if you need an example for dobro, fiddle or upright bass, it's on this album, too.

Every bluegrass instrumentalist needs this album.

The Bluegrass Banjo Gold Standard
This is still the Bluegrass Banjo CD by which all great Bluegrass Banjo is judged. It probably always will be. This CD is one of the reasons I fell in love with the hard driving sound of bluegrass banjo. Scruggs invented the 3 finger style and his mastery has never been equaled. In my humble opinion, this is the best single snapshot of Scruggs Style banjo ever recorded. Although it's a short CD, if you love bluegrass banjo, you will never grow weary of listening to this one. All songs are performed without lyrics and all are performed 3 finger style. If you own only 1 banjo CD, this is the one to own.

From Where All Blugrass Banjo Music Flows
I'd be will to bet a small fortune that Bela Fleck, Tony Trishka, Bill Keith, Raymond Fairchild, Jerry Garcia, Sonny Osborne, and just abount anyone else who ever had the fever to learn how to pick the 5-string has a worn-out copy of the original LP of "Foggy Mountain Banjo" (and probably had a record player with 16 RPM to slow down Earl's playing so that they could figure out for themselves what he was really up to). Amd while the aforementioned represent a treasure trove of talent (and in the cases of Fleck, Trishke, and Keith, drove the banjo to greater heights), any one of them would readily acknowledge the debt they owe to Earl Scruggs, whose remarkable style of playing remains as fresh and exciting today as when he first debuted it in the Grand Ol' Opry almost 60 years ago.

This collection is not particularly exhaustive, and because of it being all instrumental, does not feature a lot of Earl's trademark "up-the-neck" back-up that is more prevalent in his other work with Lester Flatt. But I'll bet another small fortune that if you're a beginning picker and can learn how to master the tumbling cresendo of "Groundspeed," the modal underpinings of "Cumberland Gap," and the dazzling harmonics of "Bugle Call Rag," you are well on your way to becoming a first rate banjo player. But don't think for a second that you'll figure it out overnight - I can personally attest to that!