Randy Scruggs, acclaimed guitarist and producer, dead at 64

Randy Scruggs, a Grammy-winning musician, songwriter, producer and the son of banjo innovator Earl Scruggs, died Tuesday after an illness. He was 64 years old.

"Randy was a quiet man with an encyclopedia of music as his guide," said friend and collaborator Jerry Douglas. "Blessed to be one of the sons of musical giant Earl Scruggs and ground- and glass-ceiling-breaking business manager Louise Scruggs, he was a wise and generous producer and a brilliant session guitarist. His catalog of successes will boggle those who are willing to follow the long and impressive line he accomplished. I will miss his calm and grace as a man of the studios of our town."

Randy Scruggs began making music professionally when he was just 13, and worked with everyone from Waylon Jennings to Miranda Lambert. Over the course of his career, he played on hundreds of recordings, including two of country and roots music's landmark albums: the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and John Hartford's "Aereo-Plain." He also produced the Dirt Band's subsequent two "Circle" volumes as well as recordings by Emmylou Harris, Loretta Lynn, Iris DeMent and many more.

More than 100 of his songs were recorded over the years. Deana Carter took "We Danced Anyway," a song he wrote with Matraca Berg, to the top of the country charts in the mid-1990s. He also wrote several songs with Earl Thomas Conley, including the No. 1 singles "Don't Make It Easy for Me" and "Angel in Disguise."

Randy Lynn Scruggs was the second of three sons born in Nashville to Earl and Louise Scruggs on Aug. 4, 1953.

He grew up surrounded by music and musicians. When he was a toddler, his father immortalized him with the banjo tune "Randy Lynn Rag." Greats like Maybelle Carter and Johnny Cash would stop by the Scruggs home in Madison. Carter's autoharp fascinated 6-year-old Randy and kick-started his love for making music.

"I used to come home at two or three o'clock in the morning and go by the boys' room," Earl Scruggs told The Tennessean in 1995. "Randy would be asleep with the guitar still across his stomach."

"It had to have been incredibly hard to grow up as the son of Earl Scruggs," said WSM DJ and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs. "But Randy, in his own way, carved a very successful path out for himself in a multifaceted career. I know that his parents were both very proud of him and his brothers Gary and Steve. If you were to get into Earl Scruggs’ car and see what he had musically at his fingertips, it was generally a CD by the original Carter Family, something by Uncle Dave Macon and the latest project that Randy was involved in."

Scruggs' guitar playing, like the crisp, clean solos he contributed to Rosanne Cash's chart-topping 1987 version of “Tennessee Flat Top Box," and his gorgeous instrumental rendition of "Both Sides Now" on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" were a lesson in taste and tone.

He played in a duo with his brother Gary and with his father and brothers in the progressive-sounding Earl Scruggs Revue for over a decade. In the 1980s, he opened and operated Scruggs Sound Studio in Berry Hill.

Scruggs released his solo debut, "Crown of Jewels," an album that featured collaborations with Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, John Prine, Trisha Yearwood, Jerry Douglas and more, in 1998. The album's opening track, Gill and Scruggs' rendition of "A Soldier's Joy," won a Best Country Instrumental Performance Grammy Award.

The Country Music Association named him Musician of the Year three times (1999, 2003 and 2006). Two projects he produced, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 2" and Alison Krauss and Union Station's version of "You Say Nothing at All," won CMA Awards for Album of the Year and Single of the Year, respectively.

He is survived by his wife, Sandy, daughter Lindsey and brother Gary. According to a family representative, a memorial will be announced at a later date.

Grammy wins

1990: Best Country Instrumental Performance, "Amazing Grace"

1999: Best Country Instrumental Performance, "A Soldier's Joy" (with Vince Gill)

2001: Best Country Instrumental Performance, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" (with Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs, Gary Scruggs, Glen Duncan, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Marty Stuart, Albert Lee, Steve Martin, Leon Russell and Paul Shaffer)

2005: Best Country Instrumental Performance, "Earl's Breakdown" (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band featuring Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs, Vassar Clements and Jerry Douglas)

Randy Scruggs' influence

"Randy helped enable some of country music’s most impactful recordings. He was a master musician, and a producer who led with grace and certainty. He honored his parents’ monumental legacies by creating his own substantial body of work. The Scruggs family is dear to this museum and to the city of Nashville. We are lesser for Randy’s passing, but we are better for the music he made and for the person he was."

— Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum