It would be impossible to tell the story of bluegrass music without highlighting the contribution of Earl Scruggs, and it would be impossible to mention Scruggs without talking about his signature tune, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

Music journalist Thomas Goldsmith had intended to write a book about best-known bluegrass songs and tunes. But as he delved deeper, based on his own understanding of the development of the musical genre and his personal contacts with some of the people involved, he realized that “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” could be a stand-alone work.

"Goldsmith’s book is solidly based in music lore and includes interviews with Scruggs himself, his family members, and many other noted musicians...who floated in the same star-filled orbit. "

Few tunes have generated the excitement and had the accolades of this single banjo-led favorite. Its composer, Earl Scruggs, was raised on a farm in central North Carolina, in a community simply named Boiling Springs, far from big cities and remote from dreams of fame or fortune. Scruggs was a banjo picker (as is the term) from his earliest childhood, and legend has it that he had to prop the heavy instrument on a chair as he determinedly mastered it. In the era of the Great Depression, there were few outside influences, though Scruggs may have heard of some of the progenitors of new banjo styles that were cropping up around him.

But in his later years, Scruggs could recall only that the three-finger rolling style that made him stand out from all the rest was something “he had been hearing in his head.” By 1949, in his 20s, he had recorded the wild, almost modal sound that would make him and his tune household names among fans of country, folk and bluegrass. His association with the great Bill Monroe and his partnership with Lester Flatt on guitar would seal the deal.

There is something about “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” that perks up the ears and stirs the whole frame from the opening bars --- it’s beyond toe-tapping. Once it hit the airwaves, people would cheer and stomp when hearing it played live --- and still do. It veers between major and minor, and has to be played at warp speed. Yet it has a haunting quality that makes you think of smoking freight trains and smoky mountains. When it was featured as the backdrop for the violently romantic sin spree Bonnie and Clyde, it seemed to have the perfect dynamic, though the reasons for it being chosen for that honor are unknown.

Goldsmith offers two versions of that backstory: 1) producer/actor Warren Beatty had a bluegrass music background and asked Scruggs to write a theme song; 2) the movie’s screenwriters kept hearing the original Mercury recording playing over and over while putting together the controversial, crime-glorifying script. Either way, the breakdown accompanies the “hats and guns and holdups” of Bonnie and Clyde in a way that captured its audience and earned Scruggs two prestigious Grammy awards.

Goldsmith’s book is solidly based in music lore and includes interviews with Scruggs himself, his family members, and many other noted musicians --- Mac Wiseman, Curly Seckler, Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas and Jesse McReynolds --- who floated in the same star-filled orbit. In Goldsmith’s reasonable opinion, without Scruggs, the sound of the banjo and the cultural roots it speaks for might have remained relatively obscure: “Scruggs saved them both, leaving music and culture richer for the ages.”