There's very little documentantion about thumb and fingerpicks, when they came in and who used 'em. I don't think Charlie Poole did.....on the other hand the "single string" work he did, that Les mentions is MUCH easier with picks (he would have used the "thumb index" style rather than a flat pick)....

Anyone have any idea when "National" finger picks came in? Thumbpicks have been around for a lonnng time.

The fifth or "drone" string was around right at the beginning....very African.

Joel Sweeney was wrongly credited for years with the developement of the fifth string, but he may in fact have added the FOURTH (bass) string.

Steve, Bossmen was written a long time ago and since then a number of Scruggs' peers have acknowledged that he had picked exactly the same way since at least 1940. Although I doubt they'd have contradicted Monroe at the time....he DID scare a lotta folks.

An interesting picker to listen to is Junie Scruggs (Earl's brother) who recorded for Folkways in the fifties. Like Snuffy, he ammended his own style a bit when Earl became so popular.

One of the great albums to listen to is made up of radio cuts from The Grand Ol' Opry during Earl's first year with Monroe. People are actually SCREAMING when Earl plays...very much like the Beatles' reaction in the sixties. The announcer Grant Turner usually announces them as: "EARL and Bill...with that fancy banjo"...no mention of the rest of the band. I suspect Bill may have been a might ticked off, and it probably explains why he was SO mad when the band left him.

Rick