Foggy Mountain Banjo

Flatt & Scruggs | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 20, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B002MCI952
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #136,076 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The basic bluegrass banjo album, February 23, 2000

By 

Hrabanus Maurus (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Foggy Mountain Banjo (Audio CD)

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.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bluegrass Banjo Gold Standard, February 27, 2003

By 

surfandsand "surfandsand" (Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foggy Mountain Banjo (Audio CD)

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.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Where All Blugrass Banjo Music Flows, February 4, 2002

By 

Gary Popovich "Retired Banjo Picker" (Chesterfield, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foggy Mountain Banjo (Audio CD)

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!