'He brought that banjo to life'

SHELBY, N.C. — Dean Jenks can’t count how times he played the banjo with Earl Scruggs, but he vividly remembers the first.

“I went to his brother Horace’s house for the first time...I was really nervous and then I saw Earl walk into the living room and he had some Kmart tennis shoes on and I knew it was going to be OK.”

Jenks played in a band with Earl Scruggs’ brother, Horace Scruggs, and the two would go to the legendary musician’s house a couple times a year.

Jenks said over the years, he became an extended part of the Scruggs family.

“He was a very, very unassuming man,” Jenks said of Earl Scruggs. “He really loved playing banjo and everybody else loved it too. It was great to play with him and it was a treat to be so close with Horace Scruggs, his brother.”

Jenks also remembers the last time he saw Earl Scruggs.

“I played at Horace’s funeral and Earl was there,” he said. “That was probably the hardest playing I ever had to do. Horace was just like my grandfather.”

Jenks, who still plays in Flint Hill, the band Horace Scruggs was once a part of, said the two spent almost 30 years of playing music together.

Jenks said Horace Scruggs also had a chance at fame, “but he thought better of it.”

Horace Scruggs wanted a more normal type of life, Jenks said.

He remembers hearing Earl Scruggs tell the stories of days on the road.

“Those early days were rough,” Jenks said. “They traveled in a station wagon with an old bass fiddle on the top. They went from one elementary or high school to the next playing in the auditorium and it was rough existence back then.”

Jenks said he is thankful Earl Scruggs brought his music to the masses.

“He brought that banjo to life and I thank God I was one of the ones he brought it to,” he said.

He started off listening to Earl Scruggs before he knew Earl Scruggs.

“My dad and I listened to Earl Scruggs flat records,” Jenks said. “I was a little bitty kid. I’ve grown up with it my whole life.”

Since his junior year in high school, Jenks has played the banjo nearly every day.

“The banjo has always spoken to me over other instruments,” he said. “It’s probably the simplicity and the complexity at the same time.”

Jenks said even people who are not bluegrass lovers, are amazed by Earl Scruggs ability to create music from the banjo.

“He was very well known but he was very underappreciated at the mastery he had over the instrument and they way he brought the five string banjo to mainstream music,” Jenks said. “He affected a lot of cultures…How neat would that be to have basically invented and bring music that everybody loves.”

WSOC