Louise Scruggs Wife Of NC Native Earl Scruggs Dies

NASHVILLE, Tennessee -- Louise Scruggs, who as wife and manager of banjo player and Shelby, NC, native Earl Scruggs helped spread the popularity of bluegrass music, has died. She was 78. Mrs. Scruggs died Thursday, her family said. She had been treated for respiratory disease. The two married in 1948, two years after they met while he was performing at the Grand Ole Opry with bluegrass founder Bill Monroe and she was a member of the audience. "She was the first professional manager in country music as well as being the first woman," Mica Buck of the Country Music Hall of Fame told The Associated Press last year. "She had a huge role in advancing their career behind the scenes." She took over management responsibilities after her husband left the Monroe band to form Flatt Scruggs with guitarist and singer Lester Flatt in 1948. Scruggs' three-finger banjo picking style invigorated country music, a term he and she preferred over bluegrass. Mrs. Scruggs saw opportunities to expand Scruggs' audience beyond country and bluegrass, first with the folk movement of the 1950s and early '60s and later with the hippie movement that included bookings like the Miami Pop Festival and college rock concerts. She almost rejected the chance for Flatt Scruggs to record one of its best-known songs, "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" that served as the theme "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show. She objected to the derogatory term "hillbilly" and feared the series would stereotype rural Southerners. She changed her mind after producers sent her a pilot episode. "She advanced me and advanced our music," her husband told The Tennessean newspaper last year. "I didn't get where I went just on talent. What talent I had would never have peaked without her. She helped shape music up as a business, instead of just people out picking and grinning." Funeral arrangements for Mrs. Scruggs are pending.