Earl Scruggs: Earl Scruggs & Friends : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In the course of helping to invent bluegrass music more than a half century ago, Earl Scruggs established the banjo as a fiery lead instrument. For that reason, it's disappointing to hear him play the role of sideman - albeit a particularly stellar one - on his new album, Earl Scruggs and Friends. In order to accommodate the likes of Elton John, Sting, Don Henley, Melissa Etheridge and (I'm not kidding) Steve Martin and Billy Bob Thornton, Scruggs retreats into tasteful accompaniment. The result is a likable pop album with bluegrass shadings. The breakneck virtuosity that has made the seventy-seven-year-old Scruggs a legend rarely surfaces. When it does, though - "Katie, bar the door," as they used to say in the hollows. Scruggs sizzles on "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," the careening instrumental theme featured in Bonnie and Clyde, and lends burning conviction to his son Randy's social critique on "Somethin' Just Ain't Right." More such moments would have been welcome. It's not that anybody wants purism from Scruggs - this is, after all, the man who brought you the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies. It's that with those Soggy Bottom Boys raising such a ruckus in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, this might have been just the right time for crossover to head in country's direction.

ANTHONY DECURTIS
(RS 877 - September 13, 2001)