Music
Louise and Earl Scruggs
With the Feb. 2 passing of Louise Scruggs, the world of music lost a genuine pioneer. From her 1955 start as booking agent for her husband Earl Scruggs and his partner, Lester Flatt, Louise went on to become not only one of the first artist managers in Nashville, but the first female one as well. More importantly, she became an indispensable player in winning new audiences for their music and the music of those who followed them. Nashville and the country music industry often do a solid job of recognizing the achievements of those who have made their contributions to music in other than performance roles. It is indisputable, though, that the legacy of Louise Scruggs has yet to be fully appreciated.
A reserved but iron-willed woman who was raising two young sons at the time she began assuming responsibility for Flatt & Scruggs’ business, Louise had been interested in business from her childhood. She wasn’t surprised by the resistance she encountered. “They always wanted to talk to Earl,” she recalled in a 2005 interview with the Scene. “But I would say, ‘No, you have to go through me anyway, so you might as well talk to me now and then we’ll get this settled.’ ”
Neither was she daunted by this resistance. Louise’s demonstrable talent for the job led to her taking on growing responsibility for Flatt & Scruggs’ career—and, as she managed their relationship with Columbia Records and took them into promising fields like the folk music revival of the early ’60s, their success. “She was to the business,” says Marty Stuart, “what Lester and Earl were to the music.”
Louise and Earl Scruggs share a kiss in 1961.
Louise was fiercely and justifiably devoted to the reputation of her husband’s banjo innovations as the critical element in bluegrass. “If it hadn’t been for this man, there would not be a thing called bluegrass music anywhere on this planet,” she said in that same interview. At the same time, Louise resisted using the term bluegrass, largely because she saw it as limiting his music’s appeal.
Even as she continued to oversee the day-to-day details of Scruggs’ business, which included tours, an instructional book, music publishing and more, Louise’s vision led their partnership in new directions. When Earl and their sons formed the Earl Scruggs Revue following the breakup of Flatt & Scruggs in the late ’60s, Louise sent them off to play on college campuses and at rock clubs and pop music festivals. She also provided crucial support for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s epochal rock-meets-country Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. And though she was plagued by poor health in recent years, she presided over Earl’s reemergence as a performer and a new round of acclaim for his stature as one of the greatest figures in American popular music.
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
“The rest of the ladies in the neighborhood had tea parties and bridge games, but I wasn’t too interested in that,” Louise said, recounting how she got started. “I said, ‘I think I can do something more. Give me something a little bit more constructive than that.’ ”
Once she got her hands on it, the music her husband made, and the broader range of music he did so much to create and inspire, were never the same.
Visit www.chartock.net/scruggs.html to hear radio host Alan Chartock’s interview with Earl and Louise Scruggs.