The world was shocked with the death of Earl Eugene Scruggs. The 88-year-old man died of natural causes in the hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 28, 2012. Scruggs was known for the popular sitcom theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies
that aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and for decades afterward in syndication. According to cnn.com, he “popularized a three-finger picking style that brought the banjo to the fore in a supercharged genre, and he was an indispensable member of the small cadre of musical greats who created modern bluegrass music.”

Scruggs was born Jan. 6, 1924 in Selby, North Carolina, to Georgia Lula Ruppe and George Elam Scruggs. He grew up in Cleveland County, North Carolina for most of his life. He began playing the banjo at the age 4, and took a great liking to it. On Nov. 15, 1969, Scruggs played his Grammy-winning Foggy Mountain Breakdown on an open-air stage in Washington D.C. at the Moratorium to end the war in Vietnam, becoming one of the very few bluegrass or country-western artists to give support to the anti-war movement.

In 2001, Scruggs released a CD, labeled Earl Scruggs and Friends, his first album in a decade and an extension of the Earl Scruggs Revue. In 12 songs, he sang with Elton John, Dwight Yoakam, Travis Tritt, Sting, Melissa Etheridge, Vince Gill, John Fogerty, Don Henley, Johnny Cash and the actor Steve Martin, a banjo player as well.

He was an inaugural inductee into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1991. In 1992, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. For more than six decades, Scruggs has taken the lead for blue grass and country music. By 2004, his personal life was on the rocks, with his wife becoming sick. Scruggs’ wife and manager, Louise, died on Feb. 2, 2006, aged 78, at Nashville‘s Baptist Hospital following a terrible illness that followed her a long time.

On March 28, Wednesday morning, Scruggs died of natural cause in the Nashville, Tennessee hospital.