WILKESBORO, NC: Old Wilkes, Inc. and The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame (BRMHoF) committee announced earlier this year that Earl Scruggs will be one of the charter inductees to be honored at the first annual Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony to be held at the Walker Center on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro on Friday, June 13, 2008.

The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame was created in 2006 to recognize and honor musicians and others who have contributed to the special heritage of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As this area became a “melting pot” of American Indian, Scotch Irish, African and other ethnic groups the musical heritage and traditions of the Blue Ridge became a major influence all over the world.

Both Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson were selected as inductees into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame as nationally known artists from the region for 2008. Earl Scruggs was born and raised near Shelby, North Carolina in Cleveland County — an area known for its strongholds of banjo enthusiasm. Scruggs began playing the banjo using a two-finger style of picking at the age of four. Being basically self-taught since the family did not own a radio, by the age of ten his “Scruggs-Style Picking” a three-finger style had become to develop. Others played with various three-finger styles but because of “the dexterity and mastery with which Scruggs attacked his instrument in this three-finger pattern “[making] the technique famous” according to Kim Ruehl. Throughout his youthful years, he continued to develop his own unique style by smoothing out the roles into a syncopated rhythm pattern, emphasizing melody lines with excellent timing and tone making the banjo a musical force largely reborn due to the talent and prominence of Earl Scruggs.

The Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame will be housed in the Wilkes Heritage Museum located at 100 East Main Street, Wilkesboro, NC. Wilkesboro is located less than twenty miles from milepost 235, or the halfway point on the Blue Ridge Parkway, easily allowing a visit the Hall of Fame or Museum. Tickets for the June 13 concert and induction ceremony, to be emceed by Mike Cross, are on sale now and may be purchased from the Walker Center box office at www.walkercenteronline.org or by phone at 336-838-6260. Dinner will start at 6:00 pm and the Induction Ceremony at 8:00 pm. A limited number of dinner tickets are available with a cost of $75 that includes seats for the ceremony. Tickets for the Concert and Induction Ceremony are $25.

Other performers and their families to be honored at the concert include: Doc Watson, The Carter Family, Tommy Jarrell, Dolly Parton, David Johnson, Ralph Rinzler, Ralph Epperson, Wayne Henderson and Sam Love Queen, Sr.

Partners involved with the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame are: MerleFest, the Walker Center, Cultural Arts Council of Wilkes, Town of Wilkesboro, David and Jean Deal, Wilkes Income Tax Service, Wachovia Foundation, Wilkes Community Foundation, N. C. Division of Tourism (Film and Sports Development), Nancy Watson, Wilkes Telecommunications, Wilkesboro Tourism Development Authority, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Community 1 Bank, Dwight & Anne Pardue, WKBC radio, Pumpkin Studio, Tyson Foods, Grassy Creek Winery, Town of North Wilkesboro, Hampton Inn, Venture Properties, SE Systems, and Tom Graves.

For more information:
Old Wilkes, Inc.
100 East Main Street
P.O. Box 935
Wilkesboro, NC 28697
Phone: 336-667-3171
www.wilkesheritagemuseum.com