Their style of music has been described as
bluegrass music in overdrive.
Lester Raymond Flatt -born June 19, 1914 in Duncan's Chapel, Tennesee. Showed an early talent for singing and became an accomplished guitarist.
Earl Scruggs - born January 6, 1924 in Flint Hill, North Carolina. By the age of 10, he had mastered the local style of picking the banjo with a three fingered roll using picks on his thumb, index and middle fingers.
Flatt and Scruggs were members of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys who were pretty much responsible for what has become known as the "bluegrass sound". The three fingered banjo technique utilized by Earl Scruggs became known as "Scruggs-style pickin'" and transformed the banjo form a somewhat comic prop to a serious musical instrument. The music was played so fast that Flatt would get back on rhythm by punctuating the end of phrases with an ascending run in the key of G, ending with an open G note on the third string. This technique became known as the "Lester Flatt G run."
Both Flatt and Scruggs left the Bluegrass Boys in 1948, each for different reasons. They wound up forming their own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. From 1953 the band was sponsored by the Martha White Flour Company on radio stations and from 1955 on the Grand Ole Opry.
Both movies and television increased their exposure. Their song "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" was used in the chase scenes in the 1967 movie, Bonnie and Clyde, and "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" was the theme song of TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies.
In 1969, the pair split up. Lester Flatt formed the Nashville Grass and Earl Scruggs, the Earl Scruggs Revue, with his sons. They were elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985.
Lester Flatt died of heart failure in 1979.He was 64 years old.
Earl Scruggs died of natural causes on March 28, 2012. He was 88 years old.