Editing Earl Scruggs (section)

==With Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys==
At age 15, Scruggs played in a group called [[The Morris Brothers]] for a few months, but quit to work in a factory making sewing thread in the Lily Textile Mill near his home in North Carolina.<ref name="cooperbook">{{cite book |last1=Cooper |first1=Peter |title=Johnny's Cash and Charley's Pride |date=2017 |publisher=Spring House |location=Nashville |isbn=978-1-940611-70-9 |page=48}}</ref> He worked there about two years, earning 40 cents an hour, until the draft restriction for World War II was lifted in 1945, at which time he returned to music, performing with "Lost John Miller and his Allied Kentuckians" on WNOX in Knoxville.<ref name="willis" /> About this time an opening to play with Bill Monroe became available.

[[File:MonroeBrothers.jpg|thumb|Bill and Charlie Monroe, c. 1936]]

[[Bill Monroe]], 13 years older than Scruggs, was prominent in country music at the time. His career started with the "Monroe Brothers", a duo with his brother [[Charlie Monroe|Charlie]]. Bill sang the high tenor harmony parts, a sound called "high lonesome", for which he became noted.<ref name="jargon">{{cite web |title=High Lonesome Sound |url=http://www.jargondatabase.com/Category/Music/Bluegrass-Jargon/High-Lonesome-Sound |website=jargondatabase.com |access-date=February 21, 2017}}</ref><ref name="bluegrass">{{cite web |title=A Brief History of Bluegrass Music |url=http://bluegrassheritage.org/history-bluegrass-music/ |website=bluegrassheritage.org |date=January 9, 2015 |publisher=Bluegrass Heritage Foundation |access-date=February 7, 2017}}</ref> The brothers split up in 1938 and Bill, a native of "the Bluegrass State" of Kentucky, formed a new group called Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. They first played on the Opry in 1939 and soon became a popular touring band featuring a vocalist named [[Lester Flatt]].<ref name="bluegrass" /> The name "[[bluegrass music|bluegrass]]" stuck and eventually became the eponym for this entire genre of [[country music]] and Monroe became known as "the father of bluegrass".<ref name="bill-monroe-bio">{{cite web |title=Bill Monroe Biography |url=http://www.biography.com/people/bill-monroe-21369943#synopsis |website=biography.com |publisher=A&E Television Networks |access-date=February 21, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170222194035/http://www.biography.com/people/bill-monroe-21369943#synopsis |archive-date=February 22, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref>

When Scruggs was 21, Monroe was looking for a banjo player for his group, because [[David "Stringbean" Akeman]] was quitting. At the time, banjo players often functioned in the band as comedians, and the instrument was often held as a prop—their clawhammer playing was almost inaudible.<ref name="washington">{{cite news |last1=McArdle |first1=Terence |title=Bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs, 88, dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bluegrass-musician-earl-scruggs-88-dies/2012/03/28/gIQAcTyqhS_story.html |access-date=February 1, 2017 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=March 28, 2012}}</ref> Monroe, along with band member Lester Flatt, auditioned several banjo players who had the same traditional playing style as Akeman. When Scruggs auditioned for them at the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, Flatt said, "I was thrilled. It was so different! I had never heard that kind of banjo picking."<ref name="willis" /><ref name="tulane">{{cite web |title=Hotel Tulane, Nashville, Tenn., circa 1917 |url=http://digital.library.nashville.org/cdm/ref/collection/nr/id/2263 |website=digital.library.nashville.org |publisher=Nashville Public Library Digital Collections |access-date=February 20, 2017}}</ref> Scruggs joined Monroe in late 1945, earning $50 a week.<ref name="nytimes" /> After they accepted Scruggs as one of the Blue Grass Boys, the roster consisted of Bill Monroe (vocals/mandolin), Lester Flatt (guitar/vocals), Earl Scruggs (banjo), Chubby Wise (fiddle), and Howard Watts (stage name Cedric Rainwater) on bass. This group of men became the prototype of what a bluegrass band would become.<ref name="cooper">{{cite news |last1=Cooper |first1=Peter |title=1924–2012: Earl Scruggs |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/218637258 |agency=Gannett |newspaper=Tennessean |date=March 29, 2012 |pages=A1–3}}</ref>

With Monroe and Lester Flatt, Scruggs performed on the [[Grand Ole Opry]] and in September 1946 recorded the classic hit "Blue Moon of Kentucky"; a song that was designated by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, and later added to the Grammy Hall of Fame. The work schedule was heavy in Monroe's band. They were playing a lot of jobs in movie theaters all over the south, riding in a 1941 [[Chevrolet]] from town to town, doing up to six shows a day and not finishing up until about eleven at night. Lester Flatt said, "It wasn't anything to ride two or three days in a car. We didn't have buses like we do now, and we never had our shoes off".<ref name="willis" /> The self-imposed rule was to always get back in time to play the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville each Saturday night.<ref name="fresh-air">{{cite web |last=Gross |first=Terry |title=Earl Scruggs: The 2003 Fresh Air Interview |url=https://www.npr.org/2012/03/30/149612506/earl-scruggs-the-2003-fresh-air-interview |website=npr.org |publisher=National Public Radio (NPR) |access-date=March 11, 2017 |date=March 29, 2012}}</ref> Scruggs said of Monroe that "Bill would never let the music go down no matter how tired we were. If a man would slack off, he would move over and get that mandolin up close on him and get him back up there".<ref name="willis" /> Despite the group's success, Scruggs decided the demands were too great. He was single at the time, and the brief few hours on Saturdays that he made it home, it was just to pack his suitcase at the Tulane Hotel where he lived alone, then repeat the cycle—he had done this for two years.<ref name="fresh-air" /> He turned in his resignation, planning to go take care of his mother in North Carolina. Flatt had also made up his mind to leave, but he had not told anyone. He later gave his two-week notice, but, before the notice was up, the bass player Howard Watts announced that he was leaving too. Despite Monroe's pleading, they left the band. Monroe thought Flatt and Scruggs had a secret understanding, but both men denied it. Monroe did not speak to either one for 20 years thereafter, a feud well known in country music circles.<ref name="nytimes" />