Scruggs hurt in fall but upbeat

Banjo innovator and bluegrass pioneer Earl Scruggs was upbeat and recuperating in Nashville on Monday after a fall Saturday from a stage in Myrtle Beach, S.C., his agent said.

"He's being examined by his personal physician today," D.J. McLachlan, Scruggs' longtime agent, said Monday. "He's in great spirits and has handled this whole thing like a miracle."

At 81, native North Carolinian Scruggs is one of the few remaining figures who founded bluegrass music in the 1940s along with mandolinist Bill Monroe and singer-guitarist Lester Flatt. Still an active performer, he had finished a 90-minute show at the South Carolina State Bluegrass Festival, when he took a tumble from the four-foot stage front, suffering a cut over his eye that required 12 stitches, the Associated Press reported.

"Everybody in the crowd was yelling for him to stop," Susanna Buck, who had a front-row seat at the concert, said in the AP's account. "There was just no way anybody could get there in time."

The news spread quickly in bluegrass circles, with the message board at www.earlscruggs.com filling up with messages from concerned well-wishers.

"It scared me to death," award-winning banjoist Jim Mills, of Durham, said Monday. "That'd be rough on a healthy young fellow."

Scruggs was checked at a Myrtle Beach hospital, then returned to Nashville on his tour bus Sunday.

Born near Shelby, Scruggs is regarded as one of the significant innovators of American popular music, creating an enduring, modernistic three-finger banjo style out of traditional elements he heard from pickers in both Carolinas.

Scruggs won 1968 and 2001 Grammy Awards for the same song, his signature tune "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," with the earlier award shared with his longtime partner Lester Flatt. In addition, Scruggs won 1998 and 2004 Grammys for his role in multiple-artist collaborations.