Banjo picker and bluegrass pioneer Earl Scruggs passed away today in Nashville.
Scruggs’ son Gary said his father passed away Wednesday morning at a Nashville, Tenn., hospital. Gary Scruggs said his father died of natural causes.
He was a titan in his field, an innovator, and it was a supreme pleasure to interview Mr. Scruggs and his son Gary many years ago, as one of my first assignments for L.A. RECORD. He will be missed.
The singer of the Four Tops died Friday at the age of 72.
I think for years, I eshewed the music of the Four Tops because of this man’s voice. I preferred the refreshing sweetness of Curtis Mayfield in the Impressions, and the horny bleating of Smokey Robinson with the Miracles, to Stubbs’s rough, manly shouting (not to mention Holland-Dozier-Holland’s plinky choral building blocks that the songs were composed of). It somehow all seemed trite and bullying.
Only now that I’m older do I realize that the Four Tops did a rare feat, combining the classy (okay, sometimes simply chintzy) sophistication of Motown with the raw, more greasy R&B that they had been a part of for a decade before joining the Motown ranks. And Levi Stubbs was a big part of that, lending a voice of pain but also one of connection to the slick sounds that threatened to wash over him in each song, but which he always beat back. It’s a really original sound, and it is elegant. And though never delicate, it now feels strong and sophisticated to my aural palate.
Of course, you can hardly blame a punk rocker from the sticks (me!) for missing the greatness of a band consistently overplayed on oldies radio his entire life. So let me send off Stubbs with a song you may not have heard played this weekend on K-Earth:
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