First Earl Scruggs Music Festival announced for 4-5 Sept. 2020

The Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, NC, and WNCW announce that the first Earl Scruggs Music Festival will be held on 4-5 Sept. 2020 at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, NC. Over twenty acts will be taking part, including Marty Stuart & his Fabulous Superlatives, Jerry Douglas, Alison Brown, Dom Flemons, Radney Foster, the Barefoot Movement, Darin and Brooke Aldridge, the Po' Ramblin' Boys, and Unspoken Tradition. More details are given in this Hearth Music e-newsletter.

[Update 10 June 2020: The Festival has now been postponed to 3-4 Sept. 2021.]

The announcement comes shortly before the publication of a major new work on Earl Scruggs. The University of Illinois Press are about to issue Thomas Goldsmith's Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown: the making of an American classic in their 'Music in American Life' series. The scope of the book is far wider than 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' itself: based on research including interviews with Earl, his wife Louise, and musicians ranging from Béla Fleck and Jerry Douglas to Curly Seckler and Mac Wiseman, it sheds light on such topics as Earl's musical evolution and his relationship with Bill Monroe.