Further to widespread press reports this week the Jimi Hendrix biopic faces a huge hurdle – Hendrix’s estate has released a new statement speaking out against the project.  

“Experience Hendrix, LLC, the family-owned company entrusted with safeguarding the legacy of Jimi Hendrix and administrator of the Jimi Hendrix music and publishing catalog, has made it known many times in the past that no such film, were it to include original music or copyrights created by Jimi Hendrix, can be undertaken without its full participation,” reads the statement. 

While Janie Hendrix (Jimi’s sister, and the CEO of Experience Hendrix) and the Experience Hendrix board have not ruled out the possibility of a Hendrix biopic altogether, the estate has refused to license music out to several other planned Hendrix biopics in the past, including one by Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, United 93). In its latest statement, the estate reiterates that Experience Hendrix would have to be involved from the get-go with any film that plans to use Hendrix’s original music.

Reports had said that the film about Jimi Hendrix entitled ‘All is By my Side’ starts filming in Ireland in three weeks time. Jimi Hendrix himself is to be played by OutKast‘s André 3000. It seems that a dispute with Hendrix’ estate about the use of his songs remains unresolved which does cast a doubt over the project. To the surprise of many industry observers, the film is currently in pre-production, the Irish Film and Television Network reports. André 3000 will spend six weeks at locations in Bray, Dun Laoghaire and Dublin, including the historic John Player Cigarette Factory. The film will be directed by John Ridley director of Three Kings, He also wrote the screenplay, which deals with Hendrix’s breakthrough in 1966, when he was discovered in a New York club by Linda Keith, then girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.

In recent years several studios have tried to make Hendrix-related films, including a failed project by Paul Greengrass. The Hendrix estate blocked all of these, refusing to license the late musician’s songs. Either they will change tack, or Ridley’s film isn’t going to use any Hendrix songs which would seem illogical..

The film has been on the cards for a while, as long ago as 2008 Andre told MTV “Everybody wants to do the movie, but there are so many things that go into a biopic, it’s kinda like, until you are on set doing it you can’t say what’s going on.”

André 3000, real name André Benjamin, has appeared in a handful of films, including Guy Ritchie’s Revolver and the 2006 OutKast musical Idlewild. Earlier this year, the rapper claimed to be working on his first solo album.

However, despite the reports the whole project looks very doubtful. Would one suspect a bit of media manipulation to get publicity here? Over to you good reader

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The Walkern Music at the Times Club, once one of Hertfordshire’s most successful venues is re-launched. Under the auspices of Trevor Keeling and friends who run the highly popular ‘Blues at the Red’ at the Red Lion Stevenage the club is re-opening with a monthly diet of the best in established and u-coming acts in roots / blues.

Saturday 12^th May sees Larry Garner, from Louisiana USA plus the Norman Beaker Band, future acts include blues legend Lazy Lester, South London rockers Roadhouse, rising roots act Babajack and the lovely Chantel McGregor.

SATURDAY 12TH MAY
LARRY GARNER AND THE NORMAN BEAKER BAND
adm £10
www.walkernmusic.co.uk

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One of the legends of Rockabilly Larry Donn has died aged 70 – singer / guitarist vocalist Larry was loved throughout the world of rock ‘n roll and rockabilly. ‘Honey Bunn’ is one of his best known tunes. His albums available from www.amazon.uk include ‘That’s What I call a Ball!’. ‘Angel’, ‘The Joker Tracks’, ‘Larry Donn’. He was Larry Donn Gillihan, two miles north of Bono, Arkansas on June 7th 1941 on his parent’s farm and grew up in Arkansas cotton picking country, Larry Donn saw  Elvis Presley play at his high school and decided to get into music he formed his first band in 1957  aged just 16. and In 1959 he recorded ‘Honey Bunn’  on the Vaden label with the flip side with a flip-side ‘That’s What I call a Ball’ – both those songs  have since become Rockabilly staples performed worldwide.

We found Larry’s own autobiographical notes on http://www.rockabillyhall.com/LarryDonn1.html those interested in rockabilly are recommended to have a look at the site which has a wealth of information.

LARRY DONN IN HIS OWN WORDS

I was born Larry Donn Gillihan, two miles north of Bono, Arkansas on June 7th 1941 on my parent’s farm. The house I was born in was later converted to a barn for horses and cows. I was an only child, but our neighbors had a son my age who also had no brothers or sisters, and we became like brothers to each other. He is my wife’s cousin, Larry Joe Patton. He has played on a few of my records, and played bass and rhythm in my band for a while. My interest in music was natural, I guess, as several people in my family are musicians. One of my uncles played with Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys in the 1940′s. I listened mostly to country or hillbilly music in my childhood, because it was the music my parents liked. I learned the words to the songs on the radio and sang them in cotton fields as we picked cotton by hand. In the early 50′s I discovered Dean Martin, and began to pattern my singing after him. In 1955, Sonny Burgess and The Pacers played a show at our school gymnasium. It was the first time I had heard a live rock n roll band, and I was immediately hooked on this new style of music. One day in the fall of 1955, while walking through the auditorium at Bono High School where I was a student, I noticed a crowd of girls gathered around the announcement board in the hall, obviously very excited. I asked one of them what the excitement was about. She replied, breathlessly, “Oh, Elvis is coming!” I said “Elvis who?” Of course, in a few weeks I knew very well who Elvis was as did the whole country. Elvis, who only did the one show at Bono, drew such a large crowd that the extra weight caused some of the floor supports to crack. Fortunately, the floor did not collapse. Elvis said many years later in an interview that he would never forget the show at Bono, because it was there that he first realized he was going to be a big star.

 
In 1956, each of the six classes in junior high and high school were given an assignment to produce an hour long show to be presented to the rest of the school in the auditorium. When our turn came I did an imitation, or pantomime, of Elvis Presley, while playing some of his records over the sound system.

I had practiced, Elvis’ moves in front of a mirror and I painted sideburns on with shoe polish to heighten the effect! The audience got into the act by screaming just like they did for Elvis, and when I finished they mobbed me at the stage and tore at my clothes and asked for autographs. Some wanted me to sign my name and some wanted me to sign Elvis’ name. I was having so much fun, I would’ve signed President Eisenhower’s name if they had wanted it. After the show, as I walked to the next class, a girl came up to me, sighed and said, “Oh, if you could only sing…” The next month, another class produced a show and I was invited to repeat my performance. I did so, and again received the same reaction.

In July of 1957, I had an accident while mowing our lawn, and cut two toes off my right foot. While I was recuperating, I learned to play the guitar. Once back on my feet, my cousin persuaded me to enter a talent contest at the school, singing and playing my guitar. I sang two Johnny Cash songs that were popular then, “Home of the Blues” and “Give my Love to Rose”, and won second place. First place went to a three year old boy who is now one of my best friends. At the contest I met Benny Kuykendall, a 14-year-old guitar player with a band which took third place. We became friends and began to play together at parties and anywhere they’d let us play. Soon, Benny’s brother, Scotty, joined us on upright bass and Eddie Reeves played drums. We played church socials, nightclubs, between the the acts of school plays in fact anywhere we could find an audience, all over Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. We soon developed a reputation as a good band.

In 1956, ’57, ’58, I was Junior Fire Marshall and Commander of the school Safety Patrol. My troops were given the responsibility of guarding the dressing room doors in the gymnasium, where most of the Sun stars performed during those years. As commander, I had access to all dressing rooms, and I had several conversations with the stars. Roy Orbison had blond hair then and didn’t wear glasses at all. Johnny Cash, a skinny young man with oily hair, played his guitar and sang “Don’t Slobber on My Red Suede Tie” to the melody of “Blue Suede Shoes” in a fair imitation of country singer Lefty Frizzell. We were in his dressing room waiting for him to go on. I helped Carl Perkins, his brother J.B and Clayton, and W.S. Holland load their equipment into the trunk and on the top of a black Chrysler after the last show they did at Bono. They were leaving for a show in Virginia, then the “Perry Como Show” in New York, History has recorded what happened on that trip.

In September 1957, I met Billy Lee Riley when his band, The Little Green Men, performed at the Criaghead County Fair in Jonesboro, Arkansas, about 9 miles from Bono. Because my cousin was Riley’s neighbor, he and I became good friends. My band and I did an album with him for Mojo Records in 1979. I played piano and assisted in the production. After I met Riley, I began singing his songs. The first rock n roll song I say was “Pearly Lee”. I sang it at a party and the girls went wild! I decided then and there that I would do rock n roll from then on. I began to do all rock n roll and rockabilly in our shows around Northeast Arkansas and Southeast Missouri. For the next few years I was heavily influenced by Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Billy Lee Riley, Roy Orbison, Jerry lee Lewis, Sonny Burgess, Warren Smith and Ricky Nelson. In early 1958, I say in with Bobby Brown and The Curios at a local club. They were from St. Louis and had been playing in our local area for a few weeks. Bobby was originally from Arkansas, but had moved to St. Louis several years before. He and I became good friends, and when my band broke up later that year, I joined his band as bass player. Soon afterwards, Bobby booked a tour of Canada, and since all musicians had to be over 21, I could not go because I was only 17. After Bobby left for Canada, Benny, Scotty, and I got back together, and we were joined by Sam Creason, who is now drummer for Kris Kristofferson. Late that year, we were invited by Billy Lee Riley to go to Sun Records in Memphis and record. WE recorded “That’s What I call A Ball” in the old Sun studio at 706 Union. A second song was also recorded, but we decided it was not good enough to release, so we went home with plans to write more songs and finish the record later.

In 1958, on the second day of my last year in high school, the principal and superintendent of the school singled me out for a dress code. I wore my collar turned up, and the two top buttons of my shirt unbuttoned like all the other boys in school. For some reason, I was ordered to turn my collar down and button my shirt all the way up, but those orders were not extended to all male students. They admitted they were picking on me … singling me out. They said, ” We’re going to make an example of you”, and when I refused to obey until the ‘dress code’ was equally applied to all students, they expelled me from school. when my mother called to question the expulsion, the principal cursed her. She promptly hung up on him and informed me that I would not be going back to that school. I took a correspondence course and got my diploma in 1961.

In the summer of 1958, I hitch-hiked back to Memphis, 65 miles southeast of Bono, and went to the Sun Studio again to see Billy Lee Riley. Unfortunately, he was out of town that day, but hadn’t told anyone at the studio that he wouldn’t be in. Bill Justis was there, and he suggested that I wait a while, that Riley would probably be coming inbefore noon, or shortly after. We called his home, but got no answer. During my wait, I helped Bill fix a loose tile in the floor of the outer office. Shortly before noon, Johnny Cash, Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant came in. A few minutes later, Justis turned on the speaker in the office, and I heard “Down The Street To 301″, and “Forty Shades of Green”. I did not know if it was an actual session, or merely a playback from a previous session, but they played both songs several times. Later that afternoon, I decided Riley wasn’t going to show up, so I left about 3:00pm and hitch-hiked back to Bono.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD4keN0C5To

Here’s Bono Arkansas’ own Larry Donn Gillihan backed the the Hemsby House band (Wayne Hopkins – bass, Ricky McCann – drums, Rob Glazebrook – guitar, unknown sax – known as the Playboys at one time) playing his classic Vaden Records tune “Honey Bun”. AND folks – he’s got a great new CD – look for it online!

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In a statement about the honor released by the White House Dylan was praised as one of the “most influential American musicians of the 20th century”. The White House also acknowledged that Dylan had “considerable influence on the civil rights movement of the 1960s and has had significant impact on American culture over the past five decades.” The award will be made by President Obama who said of all the awardees ‘They’ve challenged us, inspired us and they’ve made the world a better place’.

Dylan was previously honored with a National Medal of Arts in 2008 and at the age of 71 shows no signs of slowing down – in 2011 he played 89 live shows on his ‘Never Ending’ tour and he rolls right on.

It s interesting to reflect on what Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone wrote about the first interview that Dylan ever did with the iconic US media magazine – Nov 29 1969
‘They say Bob Dylan is the most secretive and elusive person in the entire rock & roll substructure, but after doing this interview, I think it would be closer to the point to say that Dylan, like John Wesley Harding, was “never known to make a foolish move.”’

Here’s a link to listen to extracts of that first ever Rolling Stone interview and to read the whole interview

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-bob-dylan-on-drugs-john-lennon-and-much-more-in-1969-20110510

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Yet another music great passes on – Levon Helm, the singer and drummer for the Band, died of throat cancer on April 19th in New York. He was 71.

His longtime guitarist Larry Campbell  told Rolling Stone that “He passed away peacefully at 1:30 this afternoon surrounded by his friends and band-mates, all his friends were there, and it seemed like Levon was waiting for them. Ten minutes after they left we sat there and he just faded away. He did it with dignity. It was even two days ago they thought it would happen within hours, but he held on. It seems like he was Levon up to the end, doing it the way he wanted to do it. He loved us, we loved him.”

Levon Helm was vocalist on some of the Band’s most iconic songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and “The Weight.”

He was born on May 26, 1940 in Arkansas and was truly a witness to the birth of rock & roll. In his teens, he saw Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis live in concert. He took up drums after seeing Lewis’ drummer, Jimmy Van Eaton and went on to play mandolin and other stringed instruments as well. In 1960, Helm joined the backing band of rock and roll notable Ronnie Hawkins – the group that would eventually include Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Garth Hudson, who would go on to become the Band. They eventually split from Hawkins to form their own group – their names included the Crackers and Levon and the Hawks – but their association with Bob Dylan grew and cemented their reputation. After Dylan saw the group in a club (either in Canada or New Jersey, depending on the source), he invited Helm and guitarist Robertson to join his electric band. “Bob Dylan was unknown to us,” Helm wrote in his 1993 memoir This Wheel‘s on Fire. “I knew he was a folksinger and songwriter whose hero was Woody Guthrie. And that’s it.” Robertson and Helm were in Dylan’s electric band for his controversial shows at New York’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Afterward, various members of the Band played on Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde and toured with him in 1966.

It was in1966 when Bob Dylan was recuperating after his  motorcycle accident in Woodstock, that he again hooked up with the band that would soon be the Band. Before Helm them, rejoined (he had left for a short spell, tired by the opposition to Dylan’s electric sound) they recorded the landmark Basement Tapes, and the Band’s crackling, homespun take on American roots music began to take shape. They renamed themselves the Band, they were signed to Capitol Records and released the classic albums, Music From Big Pink (1968) and The Band (1969). Although Robertson was the Band’s principal songwriter, it was Helm’s beautifully gruff and ornery voice that brought true authenticity to Robertson’s mythic Americana songs to life.

In 1976, at Robertson’s urging, the Band broke up after its farewell concert, known as “The Last Waltz.” In meetings before the concert and as recounted in This Wheel‘s on Fire, Helm was adamantly opposed to the group disbanding. “I didn’t want any part of it,” he wrote. “I didn’t want to break up the band.” He begrudgingly went along, but his relationship with Robertson was never the same. After the show, Helm formed his own band, Levon Helm and the RCO All Stars, featuring fellow legends Dr. John, Steve Cropper, and Booker T. Jones, and recorded several solo albums. Helm also ventured into acting with an noted role in 1980′s Coal Miner‘s Daughter, playing Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek’s) father. He couldn’t leave the Band behind, and in the early Eighties he formed a new version, with Danko, Manuel, and Hudson. They recorded three new studio albums.

In the late Nineties, Helm – whose singing had anchored Band classics– was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent 28 radiation treatments, eventually recovering his voice. In recent weeks, however, Helm had canceled a number of shows, including one at the New Orleans Jazz Fest on April 27th and another in Montclair, New Jersey. A note posted to his website on Tuesday from his daughter Amy and wife Sandy said that Helm was in the “final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey. Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration…he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage.”

The Band continued for a while after Manuel’s suicide by hanging in 1986, but Danko’s death in 1999 of heart failure ended the Band once and for all. By then, Helm was dealing with throat cancer. After his recovery, he began holding intimate concerts in his combination barn and studio in Woodstock, called the “Midnight Ramble,” in part to pay his medical bills. The low-key, woodsy performances became must-see shows and attracted a rock who’s who; Elvis Costello, Natalie Merchant, the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh and Donald Fagen were among the many who joined Helm and his band. The Ramble shows led to two acclaimed Helm solo albums – one of which, 2007′s Dirt Farmer, won a Grammy in the Best Traditional Folk category. “This go-round has been a lot more fun,” Helm told Rolling Stone in 2009. “Now I know I’ve got enough voice to do it.”

When the Band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Helm didn’t attend, revealing that his feud with Robertson was still on. “I thought Levon was going to show,” Robertson told Rolling Stone a few years later. “Then that evening they said he changed his mind and wasn’t going to come. And I thought, ‘Oh, God, it would have been better if he was here.’”

Helm’s throat cancer had taken a toll on his singing voice. On stage and in recent interviews, his voice was sometimes strong but other times he was reduced to a low rasp. But at one his last shows, in Ann Arbor on March 19th with a 13-piece band, the audience roared when he sang the Band classic “Ophelia.” “I’m not the poster boy of good health,” he said in an interview last year. “But I’m not doing too badly. I still got the energy to make music. As long as I can do that, I’m great.”

Quotes from Levon Helm

On music -

“As long as you can keep music a part of your life, you’ve got a hell of a chance!”

On the vocation to music (it is a vocation that makes most that pursue it self-employed) and Levon said “Most of us are self-employed.  We get sick too and we have to pay those bills and it’s quite a struggle at times.”

“…Especially with aging musicians – a lot of them don’t have any health care.  A lot of musicians really tip their hats to MusiCares.”

…and on his beloved American roots music -“The power of music just kinda kills all those ills; it cures everything and you’ve got more energy just from the music.  And, I’ve never seen it fail.  It’s good for ya; real good for ya.”

Levon Helm sings ‘Poor Dirt Farmer’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBuJB218UvU

Levon Helm interviewed – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVey5eGRZqk

Early footage of the Band with Levon singing ‘Up on Cripple Creek’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOlq2dHCZOA&feature=g-vrec&context=G27be5faRVAAAAAAAAAw

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Influential guitarist Bert Weedon, best known for creating the popular tutorial manual Play In A Day, has died aged 91.

Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Brian May are among the stars who learned to play guitar from his books.

Born in east London, in May 1920, he had been ill for some time and died at his home in Beaconsfield, his friend John Adrian said.

He was awarded an OBE in the 2001 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his services to Music.

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Blues is truly the peoples’ music – with many venues being run by dedicated unselfish guys purely for the love of the music – THIRD THURSDAY BLUES AT SOUTH STREET ARTS CENTRE in Reading is no exception –now in its 6^th year Andy Wilkin & Dick have worked like Trojans to build a successful venue – in their own words – “

On the Third Thursday of every month, at the South Street Arts Centre in Reading, for stupidly small sums of money, it is possible to expose yourself to the very best in Blues this country, and quite a few others, has to offer.

Now in their fifth magnificent year the loons known as Andy and Dick are still convinced that many more artists deserve their forty five minutes of fame than will ever reach public acclaim by the ’normal’ channels. (Jools Holland, Simon Cowell and ‘talent’ shows – is that all that’s left by way of normal?)

The original big idea: To put on a band with a name to draw in the public and team them with a locals who will knock their socks off, has grown into the current season of ‘best night out’ combinations. If, for instance, you had booked Chris Farlowe (Sept) you would expect to sell-out, you would want a band who were different, innovative, relatively new to the scene and able to take full advantage of the evening – enter Reading’s own Jason Manners and his laid back, slightly jazzy trio 3 Buck Shirt.

If you have booked Ireland’s full on, high octane Grainne Duffy (June) then why not the Delta Ladies as an obvious choice for a varied and entertaining evening.

Each one is planned to be the ‘best night out ever’ – not that we’re over-ambitious or anything. The idea was never to make money (just as well) and if any evening ever shows a profit the cash will be rolled forward for the next batch of Blues Nights.

It will only cost £10* to see:

April 19 – Rag Mama Rag – Beggars Belief support

May 17 – Wizz Jones and Sonny Black – double header

June 21 – Grainne Duffy + Delta Ladies

July 19 – Spider John Koerner and Chip Taylor – Dave Peabody support

August 16th – The Retreat Monday Blues Session hits the Spotlight

September 20th – Chris Farlowe and the Norman Beaker Band + 3 Buck Shirt

October 18 – Dave Raphael Band + support

November 15 – Mercury Blues Band + Clare Free

December 20 – Giles Robson and the Dirty Aces + Chris Massmayhem and the Shambles

*(£7.50 if you sign up as a member -no fee)

Over the years we have had a couple of disasters and many great memories, including – The Ragtime Jug Orchestra handing out kazoos to the entire audience, Dave Arcari scaring the pants off us soft southerners, Michael Roach not wanting to go home and sitting in the auditorium singing gospel songs with his support act and the many, many times friends and colleagues have stepped up and exceeded even their own expectations in front of an attentive, knowledgeable Blues audience.

If you want a hobby that combines the tensions of teetering on the brink of disaster and insolvency with absolute tiredness and (sometimes) the pleasure of complete satisfaction then a Blues Club is the way to go.”

So there you go people ‘THIRD THURSDAY BLUES AT READINGS SOUTH STREET ARTS CENTRE – as recommended by www.liveblues.info

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Texas bluesman Buddy Whittington is in the UK to celebrate his album ‘Six String Svengali’ with a series of gigs that include one at Ronnie Scotts on 22^nd April. According to popular legend Buddy was once described by John Mayall as “possibly the greatest Bluesbreaker of them all.”

Buddy is part of a line of great Texan Bluesmen singers and guitarists, that goes way back Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mance Lipscomb, T-Bone Walker, Ray Sharpe, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland,  Gatemouth Brown, Bugs Henderson, John Nitzinger, Anson Funderburg, and of course Freddie King. Buddy kindly spoke to LIVEBLUES.INFO and he was utterly charming and affable – you can read the interview here. But LBI recommends that you get to a gig a hear this master musician play.

Sun April 22nd       LONDON                              Ronnie Scotts 47 Frith St. W1D 4HT   0207 439 0747

www.ronniescotts.co.uk          Special guest appearance with Ronnie Scotts Blues Explosion

Mon April 23^rd        OXFORD                               Monday Blues  The Bullingdon 162 Cowley Rd. OX4 1UE

01865 244516                 www.famousmondayblues.co.uk                     8pm   £12

Thur May 3^rd  LONDON                           Half Moon Putney 93 Lower Richmond Rd.SW15 1EU

0208 780 9363                www.halfmoonputney.co.uk                             8pm   £12

Buddy is available for interviews

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Earl Scruggs, who is widely regarded as the “father of bluegrass banjo”, has died aged 88. He pioneered a colorful “picking” style that helped to transform American country music. It is Bill Monroe who is generally regarded as the one who brought various diverse styles of mountain music together and made it bluegrass, a style he once described as “Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound.” Earl Scruggs’s banjo transformed the genre even further and raised it to new levels of popularity. Rather than frailing he picked the strings with three fingers, coaxing the instrument to produce recognisable syncopated melodies.

Earl Scruggs was best known for his partnership with Lester Flatt which produced the hit ‘The Ballad of Jed Clampett’ the theme song for the 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies, and for Foggy Mountain Breakdown (1950), a fast-paced instrumental piece which was heard during the car chases in the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Both were recorded with Lester Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys.

One critic observed “It’s hard to say what might have happened to bluegrass had Earl Scruggs not come along, but without question, it wouldn’t be the music form it is today without the Scruggs banjo.”

Earl Eugene Scruggs was born on January 6 1924 at Flint Hill, a small farming community in North Carolina. His father, a small farmer and bookkeeper, died when he was four, leaving his mother to run the farm and bring up her five children on her own.

Everyone in the family played music and, although Scruggs acknowledged the influence of the banjo player Snuffy Jenkins on his own style, he claimed to be self-taught and to have developed his three-finger technique on his own. The bluegrass historian Neil Rosenberg described Scruggs’s style as “a ‘roll’ executed with the thumb and two fingers of his right hand” that essentially made the banjo “a lead instrument like a fiddle or a guitar, particularly on faster pieces and instrumentals”.

In 1939 Scruggs joined a local string band which performed on the radio, but left to work in a textile mill during the Second World War. In 1945 he took up his banjo again and performed with “Lost” John Miller and His Allied Kentuckians in Nashville. He soon came to the attention of Bill Monroe, whose Blue Grass Boys performed at the Grand Ole Opry. Monroe booked Scruggs to replace his banjo player, Dave “Stringbean” Akeman, who played in the more traditional “clawhammer” manner.

Scruggs made his recording debut with the Blue Grass Boys in 1946 on Heavy Traffic Ahead and embarked on a gruelling touring programme with the band. But in 1948, frustrated by the low pay and hard work, he left, planning to return to the textile mill. Before he could, however, he was persuaded by his former Blue Grass Boys colleague, the guitarist and vocalist Lester Flatt, to join him in a new group. Flatt & Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys secured a radio show and signed with Mercury Records. By the mid-1950s it had a nationally syndicated television show and a regular slot at the Grand Ole Opry.

Scruggs’s banjo gave the band its distinctive sound. They performed several times at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded a live album at the Carnegie Hall in 1962. The Ballad of Jed Clampett made it to the top of the country music charts, and in 1968 a re-recording of Foggy Mountain Breakdown won a Grammy for best country performance.

But Scruggs was never content to rest on his laurels and was always looking to develop to new techniques and styles of playing. As bluegrass lost ground to rock and folk rock, Earl Scruggs began playing with his three sons, recording material by Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones and appearing alongside The Byrds, Joan Baez, Elton John and other stars.

Flatt, however, resisted innovation, feeling that it would alienate the band’s grass-roots fans. In 1969, amid growing discontent, the two broke up. Flatt continued to work with the other Foggy Mountain Boys,  and Scruggs, with his sons, formed the Earl Scruggs Revue. This was a mostly acoustic group which took what Scruggs described as a “no-cubbyhole, category-free, barrier-less approach to music”. They released several albums and toured until 1980. Scruggs’s wife, Louise, died in 2006 and a son died in 1992. His other two sons survive him.

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The years 2012 and 2013 will see some  notable anniversaries – The Rolling Stones 50^th, The Pretty  Things 50^th , but probably none more significant than today 19^th March 2012 the 50^th anniversary of the release of  Bob Dylan’s self-titled debut album. That LP hit  the shelves on March 19th, 1962, it didn’t sound  like the pop music of the time. In the USA that was the height of “The Twist” dance craze, and 11 songs on the US  chart had the word “twist” in the title,  in the UK Elvis was number 1, Chubby Checker nr 2, Cliff Richard was 3 with ‘The Young Ones’,  Leroy Van Dyke was 5 with ‘Walk on By’,  also on the Charts – Burl Ives, Everly Brothers, Dion, Bernard Cribbins, Matt Monroe, Bobby Vee, Sam Cooke, Billy Fury and Russ Conway  – things were certainly going to change.

In the USA the Kingston Trio was the embodiment of folk; clean-cut, sweet-voiced they hit Number 25 that week with their version of Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Dylan was a fan of Seeger’s, but obviously sounded nothing like the Kingston Trio. Dylan aged 20  from Hibbing, Minnesota had been playing the New York coffee houses for just over a year, mostly  traditional folk songs in a nasal voice that was hard to imagine hearing on the radio.  The UK was much hipper than the US with a growing underground interest in Roots and Blues music that would soon see the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pretty Things and others on the way to revolutionizing  music

John Hammond The 51-one year old, Columbia record executive saw the huge potential in Dylan. He had famously discovered Billie Holiday and numerous other jazz legends, He became acquainted with Dylan when he played harmonica at a session with Carolyn Hester. They met at a rehearsal in a Greenwich Village apartment. “We were all seated around a kitchen table, and John was seated next to Bob,” Hester recalled to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes in his book Down the Highway: the Life of Bob Dylan. “Bob starts in on harmonica and John turns and looks at him and couldn’t take his eyes off the great character.” His interest grew when he learned that Dylan wrote his own songs.

About that time, Dylan opened up for the Greenbriar Boys at Gerde’s Folk City. He earned a rave review in the New York Times by pop writer Robert Shelton. Hammond didn’t need further convincing and on October 25th, 1961 Dylan was signed on a five-year contract.  Around a month later, they recorded Dylan’s first album. It was cut in just six hours (spread across two days) for an estimated $402.

“There was a violent, angry emotion running through me then,” Dylan said. “I just played guitar and harmonica and sang those songs, and that was it. Mr. Hammond asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no. I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.”

, The album consisted mainly of older folk songs much like his live set at the time, and includes “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” by Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Highway 51″ by Curtis Jones and “Fixin’ to Die” by Bukka White. His rendition of “The House of The Rising Sun”  caused him trouble in the  Greenwich Village folk music community. Dave Van Ronk – one of Dylan’s earliest supporters and a huge presence in the Village – was noted for his arrangement of the traditional tune. “Before going in the studio, he asked, ‘Hey Dave, mind if I record your version of “Rising Sun?’” Van Ronk recalled to Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto. “I said, ‘Well, Bobby, I’m going into the studio soon and I’d like to record it.’ And later he asked me again and I told him I wanted to record it myself, and he said, ‘Oops, I already recorded it and I can’t do anything about it because Columbia wants it.’ For a period of about two months we didn’t speak to each other. He never apologizes, and I give him credit for it.”

The album contained two original songs: “Talkin’ New York” and “Song to Woody.” The first song recounts Dylan’s earliest days in New York when he “got a harmonica job, begun to play/Blowin’ my lungs out for a dollar a day.” Dylan claims he wrote “Song to Woody,” a tribute to his musical hero Woody Guthrie, just weeks after arriving in New York, a trip partially inspired by the fact that Guthrie was living at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey and Dylan wanted to meet him. “(‘Song to Woody’) was written in New York City in the drugstore on 8th Street,” he said to Sing Out! Magazine in the summer of 1962. “It was one of them freezing days that I came back from Sid and Bob Gleason’s in East Orange, New Jersey…Woody was there that day and it was a February Sunday night…and I just thought about Woody, I wondered about him, thought harder and wondered harder…I wrote this song in five minutes…it’s all I got to say.”

The album failed to make the US charts and sold about 5,000 copies that year, but it did make the top twenty in the UK, nr 13 in fact. Executives around Columbia referred to Dylan as “Hammond’s Folly.” Undeterred, Hammond brought Dylan back into the studio just one month after the album came out to begin work on his second LP. In the five months after the first album was recorded, Dylan had turned his attention towards political causes. He recorded “The Death of Emmett Till” and “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” at the first session, and in July of 1962, he returned to Columbia Studio A with a new song called “Blowin’ In The Wind.” It had been a part of his live show for months, and by the next summer, it would completely transform his life

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/50-years-ago-today-bob-dylan-released-his-debut-album-20120319#ixzz1pb93rvWq

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