The Foggy Mountain Boys were the backing band for bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Formed after the pair's departure from Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys in early 1948, the group were active until March 1969, when the pair parted ways due to musical differences. Flatt, Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys are cited as one of the most influential groups and featured numerous members during their tenure. In addition to Flatt and Scruggs, the band's original lineup featured guitarist Homer "Jim" Eanes and bassist Howard "Cedric Rainwater" Watts. By the time they disbanded, the group included guitarist fiddler Paul Warren (from 1954), bassist English "Jake" Tullock (from 1954 to 1955, and from 1958), dobro player Burkett "Josh" Graves (from 1955) and Howard "Johnny" Johnson (from 1963).

History

1948–1950 A couple of weeks after a final performance at the end of February 1948, guitarist-vocalist Lester Flatt, banjo player Earl Scruggs and bassist Howard "Cedric Rainwater" Watts all left Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys to form their own group, the Foggy Mountain Boys (FMB), which was completed with the addition of second guitarist Homer "Jim" Eanes. After just a few weeks, however, Eanes was invited to join Monroe's band, which he accepted. Flatt, Scruggs and Watts moved to Hickory, North Carolina and enlisted Jim Shumate, another Blue Grass Boys alumnus, as their new band's first fiddler. The band spent all of April performing a regular radio show on WHKY, before hiring Mac Wiseman at the end of the month and moving to Bristol, Virginia, where they secured a slot on WCYB thanks to Wiseman's previous work on the station.

With the five-piece lineup of Flatt, Scruggs, Wiseman, Shumate and Watts, the FMB signed with Mercury Records and recorded their first four tracks in the fall of 1948, which were released across two singles in early 1949. Wiseman decided to leave the band around Christmas time, with Shumate following shortly thereafter to return to Hickory. He was replaced in the lineup by the original Blue Grass Boys fiddler, Art Wooten. To replace tenor vocalist Wiseman, Flatt hired mandolinist John "Curly" Seckler in March 1949, who joined from Hoke Jenkins' Smoky Mountaineers. After they relocated again to Knoxville, Tennessee, the new lineup's first recording sessions took place in "April or May" that year and spawned another two singles for Mercury. By September, Wooten had moved on and Benny Sims had taken over as the FMB's fiddler.

The band's next recording sessions in December spawned four singles. "No Mother or Dad" featured as its B-side the instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", which would go on to be recognised as one of the band's (and the genre's) most popular and well-known compositions. Around February or March 1950, the group moved again to Versailles, Kentucky. Shortly thereafter, they hired Chuck Johnson as their booking agent and later added him to their comedy routine, for which he adopted the stage name "Jody Rainwater" and performed as Watts' character Cedric's younger brother. In May, just a few weeks after his addition to the show, Johnson took over bass and bass vocals from Watts, who left just before the band moved back to Bristol, Virginia. He later joined Hank Williams' band, the Drifting Cowboys. In September, the band moved again to Tampa, Florida, where they recorded their final six tracks for Mercury the next month.

1950–1955

The FMB moved back to Kentucky, signed with Columbia Records, and recorded their first tracks for the label in November 1950. The next month, Sims was replaced by another former Bill Monroe fiddler, Robert "Chubby" Wise. Seckler also left in March 1951 after what his manager Penny Parsons described as "a disagreement that no one seemed to remember", with Everett Lilly taking his place in time for a session in May. In August, the group moved to Roanoke, Virginia for a show on WDBJ, during which time Wise was replaced by a returning Art Wooten. For a session in October, former Blue Grass Boy Howdy Forrester stood in on fiddle. Shortly after the band moved to Raleigh, North Carolina at the start of 1952, Wooten was replaced by yet another former Monroe former fiddler, Benny Martin. After the first weekend of June, Jody Rainwater left Flatt and Scruggs to work as a disc jockey at WSVS in Crewe, Virginia. He was replaced by Charles "Kentucky Slim" Elza.

Around a week into September, Lilly also left the group to join Tex Logan's band, with Curly Seckler returning just as the group moved back to Knoxville, Tennessee. Not long after the move back to Knoxville, Howard Watts returned to the FMB to replace Elza, who Parsons described as a "mediocre bass player". The group recorded four new singles in November, before Watts left again in the early spring of 1953 as he was unhappy being a salaried employee rather than an equal partner as he had been originally. Watts was not replaced officially at first, with bass handled by stand-ins Lonnie "Red" Murphy (possibly), Roy "Junior" Huskey and Bob Moore over the next few months, during which time the band moved to Nashville, Tennessee. The next two FMB sessions, in late August 1953, featured Moore on bass and Louis Innis on second guitar.

Around February 1954, the band moved back to Knoxville and brought in two new members: fiddler Paul Warren and bassist Joe Stuart. Stuart was replaced by English "Jake" Tullock in May, just before the band's next recording session that month. The group moved again in August to Crewe, Virginia, then over the Christmas period moved back to Nashville, where they would stay for the rest of their career. Their next recording session, in January 1955, featured guest rhythm guitarist Eddie Hill. By March, Tullock had left the band due to "health problems", with bass handled over the next couple of months by stand-ins Benny Williams, Hoke Jenkins and Joe Stuart. In May, the band hired Burkett "Josh" Graves as Tullock's replacement, although after a two-week trial he chose to primarily play dobro, and Charles Elza returned to the lineup on bass.

1955–1962 After several months of guest performances on the show, Flatt, Scruggs and the FMB made their first advertised appearance on the Grand Ole Opry in early June 1955, before becoming official members in September. The first two recording sessions with Josh Graves took place at the beginning of that month, the first featuring Loren "Jack" Shook on rhythm guitar and Ernie Newton on bass, and the second featuring Chet Atkins on rhythm guitar and Bob Moore on bass. A month later, Scruggs and his wife were injured in a road traffic accident on the way to visit his mother, who was in hospital after suffering a stroke. He was hospitalised for several weeks and later underwent several surgeries, which left him unable to tour for eight months. The group continued performing, with Curtis McPeake, Donnie Bryant and Haskel McCormick filling in on banjo.

Scruggs was able to return to the band full-time in the spring of 1956. Around the same time, Onie Wheeler took over bass duties from Elza, who remained as a comedian. Wheeler debuted in the studio at the band's next session in May, which also featured guest guitarist Harold Bradley. By early 1957 he had left, with bass handled at sessions in January and March by Howard Watts and Junior Huskey, respectively. Frank "Hylo" Brown took over from the spring, debuting at a session in July. He remained until the beginning of 1958, when he was replaced by the returning Jake Tullock (comedian Elza, "Kentucky Slim", also left the wider group around the same time). Before Tullock's arrival, the band recorded two singles in January with session bassist Ike Inman. In April, the group (with Tullock) recorded four gospel tracks released as two singles.

A few weeks after the April 26, 1958 session, Curly Seckler left Flatt and Scruggs' band for the second time after a "falling out" with Flatt. He was replaced for the rest of the year by his previous replacement Everett Lilly, before he left again at the end of the year and the band brought in Richard "Curley" Lambert to take his place. After a session in January 1959, Brown returned to the band on bass, with Tullock switching to guitar for the next session in April. In May, Seckler returned and Brown left again. In August and October that year, the band recorded their first album, Songs of Glory. In April 1960, they added drums to their recordings for the first time, working with Murrey "Buddy" Harman on the singles "The Great Historical Bum" and "Polka on a Banjo". They recorded Foggy Mountain Banjo in August and September without Seckler.

The band continued recording throughout 1961 and early 1962, working with drummers Doug Kirkham and John Greubel and guest guitarist Maybelle Carter. In late March 1962, Seckler was dismissed from the band, with Scruggs telling the mandolinist that the decision was made because they were "going to reduce the band some". Josh Graves recalls that it was Flatt's decision to fire Seckler.

1962–1969

Flatt, Scruggs, Warren, Graves and Tullock continued as a five-piece, recording "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" in September 1962 and the album Hard Travelin' the following month. Less than a year after downsizing, they returned to a six-piece towards the end of the year with the addition of Billy Powers on guitar, who debuted on the live album At Carnegie Hall! recorded in December. Josh Graves took a "leave of absence" during early 1963, with Kenny Haddock taking his place for live shows and one recording session. Powers had left by the spring of 1964, with recordings that summer featuring Monroe Fields on mandolin and baritone vocals. From December onwards, they were augmented by session harmonica player Charlie McCoy. Session guitarist Grady Martin also joined the recording unit starting with the tracking of Town and Country from September 1965.

In late 1965, the band added multi-instrumentalist Earl Taylor on mandolin and harmonica. He performed at four recording sessions and remained until the summer of 1966, contributing to the album When the Saints Go Marching In released shortly after his departure. McCoy subsequently returned to recording sessions later in 1966, when the band recorded Strictly Instrumental with guitarist Doc Watson. At the beginning of 1967, Howard "Johnny" Johnson joined on second guitar, contributing to the band's next album Hear the Whistles Blow. The official FMB lineup remained stable for the next two years, although the band continued working with a range of session contributors for their next two albums The Story of Bonnie & Clyde and Nashville Airplane, including Scruggs' sons Gary and Randy, guitarist Charlie Daniels, bassist Henry Strzelecki and drummer Kenny Buttrey.

After growing tensions and increasing musical differences, Flatt and Scruggs officially ended their musical partnership on March 11, 1969, with Flatt going on to form Nashville Grass and Scruggs turning his attention to the Earl Scruggs Revue. The pair later recorded a final album, Final Fling: One Last Time, in August 1969 with Johnson, Randy Scruggs and Daniels on guitars, Paul Warren on fiddle, Strzelecki and Bobby Dyson on bass, Buttrey and Jerry Carrigan on drums, and McCoy on harmonica. Lester Flatt died of heart failure on May 11, 1979; Earl Scruggs died of natural causes on March 28, 2012. Both were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985 (as a pair), the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 1991 (its inaugural year), and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.

Members Official