A Few Notes
(Pun Intended)
Earl Scruggs & J.D. Crowe
Two remarkable men. Self-effacing, modest, gentle and soft spoken. Yet they could fire off a hail of notes that could set your hair on fire. Their right hands spoke eloquently and powerfully, belying their quiet countenance. And that was the surprise and their charm. Never bombast or a braggart, they sneaked up and pounced like a cat when they picked up their Mastertones. In a time machine, I would skip Lincoln’s Gettysburg address or as a witness to the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Instead, I would be at the Grand Ole Opry when Earl stepped on stage and rattled off Foggy Mountain Breakdown for the first time. And a glance at the audience to witness their thrill.
The Photographs
The photographs of Earl at home and in the Opry green room were taken with a Hasselblad 500c and 50 and 80mm lenses. The stage photos were taken with the Hassleblad and a 35mm camera whose brand I don’t remember. These, of course, were manual focus and exposure film cameras and far more tedious to capture stage shots than with today’s technology. The film was Kodak Tri-X pan. All photos were taken with natural light as existed at their locations.
The photographs of J.D. were taken with the same Hassleblad 500c and lenses. Kodak Tri-X pan again for the black and white and Ektachrome 400 for color. The lighting was both natural and augmented by a small studio quartz light.
Once processed, the film was packed away and stored since 1973 and 1983 respectively. Recently, I digitized the film using an Epson V850 Pro flatbed scanner. Then, a couple months were spent organizing, editing, retouching and correcting the images using various photo processing programs.
Good Books
Although my biography of Earl way back in 1973 never saw fruition (see the Details page), there’s good news. I recommend two excellent recent Earl Scruggs biographies; Earl Scruggs, Banjo Icon, by Gordon Castelnero and David Russell; published by Brown & Littlefield, 2017 and Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown, The Making of an American Classic, by Thomas Goldsmith; published by the University of Illinois Press, 2019.
And for J.D. Crowe, there is the 2011 biography; Crowe On The Banjo; The Music Life Of J.D. Crowe, by Marty Godbey, published by the University of Illinois Press.
About
For any comments or questions about the photos in the galleries, please note that they can be identified by number when positioning your cursor over any photo in the gallery overview or clicking on the “i” for information on the bottom left of the screen.
I can be contacted at the following email address:
banjolegends@gmail.com (Daniel Duffin)
With the exception of the photos on the “Extra Earl” page, the photos on this website are Copyright 2022 Daniel Duffin.