You know it seems like yesterday, but its' been well over thirty years now, over thirty years since I caught the fire. I was fooling around on my fathers old tube radio trying to pick up Mexico on Saturday night, when I heard those magic words "Now folks, it's Martha White time, please make welcome Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain boys". I had, of course, found WSM 650 AM, The Grand Ole Opry, and I was hooked. After the Opry, Flatt and Scruggs hosted the Ernest Tubb Record Shop program. When I got to school that Monday, all I could talk about was Earl and that banjo- I still haven't shut up about him.
I got my first banjo for Christmas that year-surely a passing fad my mother thought. (She let us open one "small" present the night before Christmas). Little did she know what that little open-back Harmony banjo would mean to my life. The next day I was playing "John Henry" in my own two finger style, the next week "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" crude-but recognizable (to me anyway!). I've spent my entire life making my living with the banjo, fed my family, played all over the United States, and Canada. I've opened concerts with all of my musical heroes, Charlie Daniels, Willie Nelson, Leon Russell, Bela Fleck, and on and on, but nothing will ever get to me like the time we opened up for the Earl Scruggs Revue at a festival in Indiana, or right after the Columbus show when I showed up on Earl's front doorstep and he graciously invited me, and my whole family into his home. He and Louise made us feel like their family.
Throughout my life whenever there were moments of loneliness or depression, it was always Earl's pickin' that got me thru. It always put a smile on my face, and in my heart. One of my greatest memories in my life will always be the concert in Columbus, Ohio. My children had never seen Earl live (they had sure heard him), but there was Earl with Randy and Gary in person. I was in tears watching my kids rockin' to Earl. It was an experience I never thought I would ever have. They climbed over the fence to meet Earl and the boys; by the time we got through the gate they were talking to Randy and Gary.
This past summer I was in the hospital with some severe complications from diabetes. When my surgeon walked in (I had never met him) he was visibly shaken by my condition and asked why I had waited so long to come to the hospital. I guess he didn't think I was funny when I said, "Well, Earl Scruggs was on TV last night." But it was true, if I was going out, I wanted to see Earl with Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs.
Earl is turning 80 years old today, and I just wanted him to know how he has change my life. Who knows how many lives he has touched with one three-fingered pinch, like the first time I heard him on the Opry.
Thank You Earl, and a Happy 80th Birthday
—Taylor Farley, Jr.