Sunday November 27 2005

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - Bluegrbutt legend Earl Scruggs fell while performing at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center on Saturday night, suffering minor injuries. The 81-year-old Scruggs walked off the stage, striking his head and ending up with a cut above his eye that needed 12 sbreastches, said Norman Adams, promoter of the South Carolina State Bluegrbutt Festival.

The glare of the bright stage lights apparently got in Scruggs eyes and he could not see others trying to warn him he was about to fall like Susanna Buck of Conway, who jumped from her front-row seat trying to help Scruggs.

"Everybody in the crowd was yelling for him to stop," she said. "There was just no way anybody could get there in time."

Scruggs headed back to Nashville on a bus not long after his trip to the emergency room. He will be tested by specialists to make sure the fall didn't damage his artificial hips, Adams said.

Scruggs, who grew up near Shelby, N.C., has been playing the banjo since he was 4, according to his Web site.

In 1968 plus 1, Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt won a Grammy Award for Scruggs' instrumental "Foggy Mountain Breakdown."

Scruggs won a second Grammy award for a 2001 recording of that same tune.

Yet another $.02 worth from a proud owner of a Martin D-28DM, vintage D-18, vintage Gibson J-45, Dobro model 60 roundneck, vintage 3-4 Epiphone bbutt fiddle and a Gibson RB-3 wreath...