Earl Scruggs, R.I.P.

   I first learned about bluegrass music in the summer of 1962.  I was Waterfront Director at a camp for what were then called "underprivileged children," and shared a mildewed tent with a fellow staffer named Joe Brecher, who has become a lifelong friend.  Joe had been introduced to this music in college, and was even able to get WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, a station that played music from "The Grand Old Opry," and featured Bluegrass music.  To those not familiar with what is often called "The High, Lonesome, Sound" that is bluegrass, think of it as an acoustic musical style that draws from both folk and country music and utilizes the banjo, one or more guitars, the dobro (an unamplified version of the Hawaiian guitar), a bass, and a mandolin.  I was already deeply involved with folk music, and loved singing and playing the guitar.  The introduction to (a) bluegrass music in general and (b) Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys in particular was nothing short of a revelation.  The virtuosity of the musicians and their tight country harmonies were, quite literally, music to my ears.  Foremost among these was the banjo playing of Earl Scruggs.  I had long been familiar with Banjo music, courtesy of Pete Seeger and the Weavers, and groups like the Kingston Trio and the Limelighters.  But Earl Scruggs, who (along with rhythm guitarist and lead singer, Lester Flatt) got his start with the late, great  singer and mandolin picker, Bill Monroe in 1945, was not just your ordinary country banjo picker.  He invented a new way of playing the banjo that no one had done before.  (The New York Times was compared his achievements on the banjo equivalent to those of Paganini on the violin.)  It is now so familiar to anyone who listens to bluegrass or folk music, that we assume it had been played that way since the invention of the instrument.  Not so.  Earl added a third finger to the playing of the five-string banjo, and what emerged was a clean, biting sound that both rippled and provided a ragtime-like alternating of the strings. Earl also added another refinement to the five-string banjo known of "Scruggs-pegs" (now called Scruggs-Keith pegs in recognition of a Scruggs protege named  Bill Keith).  These were extra pegs on the banjo that allowed the player (initially only Earl Scruggs) to change tunings in the middle of a piece. Whenever Earl would utilize these pegs in concert appearances, the audience would burst out in spontaneous applause, smiles wreathing our appreciative faces.
  The world at large became aware of bluegrass music when one of the signature pieces of Flatt &; Scruggs called "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" appeared as the getaway song in the movie, "Bonnie and Clyde."  A few years later, Flatt & Scruggs provided the theme song to "The Beverly Hillbillies" and, later, "Petticoat Junction."
   When the movie version of James Dickey's classic novel, "Deliverance," appeared, it featured the instrumental, "Dueling Banjos," in which a guitar and banjo trade licks.  Once the duel really gets going, the banjo explodes in Scruggs-style banjo.
   Given Scrugg's unique contribution to the five-string banjo, it is easy to forget what a fine guitar player he was.  Listen to their album, "Flatt & Scuggs sing Songs of the Famous Carter Family." For years, I struggled to replicate his guitar-picking on the classic, "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy." Eventually, I was satisfied with having "approximated" it.  There is not a single bluegrass banjo picker who does not owe a debt to the late master.  Without Earl Scruggs, they might have been playing the banjo, but not in that style which is now synonymous with bluegrass music.
   Yesterday, just before writing this blog, I was walking by my music room, where I keep my guitar, stereo components and far too many records and LPs.  I heard the sound of something falling to the floor, little louder than a whisper.  When I looked to see what had made these gentle noise, I saw that it was a small model banjo that had fallen from its pedestal to the floor.  I lovingly put it back in its place, and shook my head at the timing of an occurrence that had never happened before.  Even my model banjo was in mourning.
    In the excellent biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Jobs was asked to assess the importance of  the music of the Dylan and Beatles versus the Rolling Stones.  Mr. Jobs said that if the Rolling Stones hadn't existed, someone else would have taken their place, but no one could have taken the place of Dylan or the Beatles.  The same can be said with regard to Earl Scruggs.  To paraphrase the words of "The In Crowd," "Other guys and gals may imitate us, the original is still the greatest."  Indeed.

Spring Training, 2012

     As a kid, the very words "Spring Training" were evocative of a rebirth, a thaw from winter's chill, and--of course--the resumption of what was then called "Our National Pastime" Whatever our national pastime is now (take your pick: gossip, tweeting, surfing the web, playing with your smart phone, etc.) it certainly isn't baseball.  Even among the other major sports, baseball could no longer be considered more popular than, say, professional football.  Nonetheless, there is something quaint about a sport being considered America's "national pastime," and I still like to think of it that way--an outdoor game played on real grass and mostly played in warm weather.
    Of the three (yes, three) baseball teams based in New York City when I was a kid, the Yankees used to train in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Dodgers in "Dodgertown" in Vero Beach,  also in Florida. Only the quirky Giants opted for Phoenix, Arizona except in 1951, trivia fans, when they did a one-year spring training swap with the Yanks.  We read eagerly about new"phenoms" who would emerge in spring training, a rare few to flourish with rest fast to fade.  )Who, except for some aging Giants fans remembers Clint Hartung?)  Others, like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays went on to make history.
  In any event, attending spring training was something reserved for only the most fortunate.  My parents, although world travelers, never went to Florida in my formative years.   The closest I came was an in utero visit the spring before my birth, not that they would have considered a visit to St. Pete's, even in honor of my incipient arrival.  One childhood friend, whose father was a wealthy manufacturer, not only went to spring training, but would favor me with postcards from the fancy restaurants he went to ("Wish you were here, Johnny" Yeah, right.) So here I was, a lifelong baseball fan, a spring training "virgin."  Now that my wife and I have a vacation home in Florida, it had it least become possible.  Alas, with the Yankees now training at faraway Tampa,  a day trip is over two hundred miles away, and more than I can subject my long-suffering (Met's fan) wife, Riki, to.   The Mets, on the other hand, were a mere hour and a half away, in Port St. Lucie.  And so, we, and two of our Florida friends, ordered tickets.  Unfortunately, it was the one day all last spring that was a rain-out.  Candidly, I felt as if I'd dodged a bullet.  Riki, a former Brooklyn Dodger fan, transferred her allegiances to the Mets as soon as that hapless conglomeration of minor leaguers and has-beens expanded to be the "replacement team" for the sadly departed Dodgers and Giants.  With only occasional respites (1969 and 1986 as memorable exceptions) her love affair with the Mets has gone largely unrequited.  Remember the wonderful song "And There Used to be a Ballpark" in which Sinatra sang, "The old team isn't playing and the new team hardly tries?" Guess who he was singing about? Anyway, Riki watches virtually every game from early April to their last furtive gasp in early October.  We watch on separate floors, occasionally comparing notes on our respective team's fortunes and exchanging a furtive between-innings embrace.
   I thought I was going to again get away without having to go see the Mets, as our friends did not have any open time that coincided with the Mets' schedule.  But Riki would have none of it.  With daily reminders, I finally agreed to go last Friday.  They were, after all, playing a Major League team (the Detroit Tigers) and I thought it would be fun to see Prince Fielder and Delman Young flex their respective muscles.  It rained the night before, and I thought that I might get another pass, but the next day dawned anew, with bright skies and a good forecast.  It was, in fact, a perfect baseball day--82 degrees with a soft spring breeze.
   Unlike last year, we had not purchased tickets in advance, preferring to take our chances rather than through the rigamarole of obtaining a refund in case of a rain-out. To our mutual surprise (perhaps because of the many Michiganders wintering nearby) the game was a sell-out.   To add insult to injury no sooner had I emerged from the car when a young man having the bad taste to be sporting a Boston Red Sox cap offered to sell me tickets at double their face value!  Sell-out or not, there are limits. Paying a Red Sox fan scalper's prices to see a Mets game, in Spring Training, no less. The very thought!  But the scalpers were right, the only tickets available were $8 standing-room.   There are some nice areas in the ballpark where you can either stand or sit on a "berm" in center field.
   Speaking of the ballpark, it has a name more befitting a website than a stadium.  It is called "Digital Domain Ballpark."  I'm not kidding.  As the late Yankee (and former Dodger, Giant and Met) Casey Stengel used to say,  "you can look it up1" That said, it is a beautiful stadium, with good, unobstructed views and major league dimensions (338 down the lines and 410 in centerfield).  Before taking our seats (uh, "stands"), I stopped by the men's room.  While I don't usually detail such visits, one aspect bears mention.  Above each urinal was a poster depicting an umpire holding his right thumb aloft in the familiar "you're out" sign.  The poster asked us, "Are You Striking Out at the Urinal?"  I wasn't sure if this was an ad for a special-interest website or a suggestion on how better to make new friends in the mens' room. It was, in fact, an invitation from a Dr. Michael Solomon a urologist who was heralded as "a proud sponsor of the Mets."  Thus advised, I quickly finished my visit, and bought us a couple of (delicious) hot dogs and sodas.  We took our places undisturbed, leaning against a rail behind first base.  There were a number of open seats (sold but un-scalped?), but it was too early in the game to liberate the seats only to risk having to give them up to their rightful owners.  In fact, about twenty-five or so school-age kids soon filed in to take up the back sets of the section I had been eyeing with interest.  The Mets injury-plagued ace, Johann Santana was taken out before the he finished the third inning. He was not helped by the three Mets errors, the last of which of which was offered up by his reliever, who threw what would have been the third out into right field.  The throw, tossed off an easy come-backer, was so far away from the first baseman that, had it been a batted ball,  would have been a line-drive single between first and second.  It was the kind of throw that (sadly) plagued Yankees' second-baseman Chuck Knoblach in his last year with the team.  As a result, two more runs scored. With the Tigers now off to an early 4-0 lead,  we took a couple of empty seats next to  a couple of Tiger fans.  We were fortunate to keep the seats undisturbed for the balance of the game--at least the balance of the game at which we chose to remain.  The Tigers were ahead 9-0 when we rose to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," just before the bottom of the seventh.  As a few raindrops began to fall, it seemed like a good time to call it a day.  The loss, followed by another the next day, dropped the Mets to 3-11, the rind of the "Grapefruit League."
  Riki was most gracious and thanked me for taking her, saying she had "gotten it out of her system."  Yes, but wait until April rolls around.