NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Moments before Earl Scruggs' silver-colored casket was escorted from the historic home of the Grand Ole Opry Sunday, a video of Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys performing the old gospel tune "Precious Memories" played on a screen above the stage.

Reuters

Ricky Skaggs and The Whites perform during musician Earl Scruggs' funeral at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday, April 1.

The last song of a video montage saluting Scruggs, who died Wednesday at age 88, "Precious Memories" showed him singing without a banjo in his hands, unusual for a man who revolutionized the way that instrument was played.

Scruggs' pioneering picking style -- delicately tapping the strings with three right fingers, coaxing precise melodies from the instrument -- forever changed the way banjo music was perceived.

Yet, while this final song played, the only banjo visible was Scruggs' Gibson Mastertone propped below the screen on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium, the former long-time home of the Grand Ole Opry.

"I can't even begin to explain the depth and sound of that instrument sitting out there," Vince Gill had said moments before he teamed with Ricky Skaggs and Patty Loveless for "Go Rest High on That Mountain."

Joe Howell / AP

Vince Gill, center, Patty Loveless, top, and Ricky Skaggs perform during the funeral service for banjo great and bluegrass pioneer Earl Scruggs.

Gill's personal lamentation -- he wrote it about his brother's death -- has become the symbolic finale at Nashville's funeral services of the legends of country music.

The death of one of the last and most-beloved pioneers of the musical form brought tears to Gill's eyes as he said of his mentor: "That friendship is something I cherish like none other."

For two hours Sunday afternoon, the former Union Gospel Tabernacle -- the original name of the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville -- returned to its roots as fans, friends and family jammed the pews for a service heavy on spirit, scripture and spirituality.

Gill's performance and testimony of love capped a celebration during which musicians saluted Scruggs by performing his songs or by demonstrating and testifying to his influence on them.

The Del McCoury Band -- bluegrass superstars whose style is a direct descendant of the music pioneered by Scruggs and his longtime partner, Lester Flatt -- set things off with "Take Me in your Lifeboat," one of that duo's songs.

That was followed by Skaggs and The Whites' performance of "Gone Home." Skaggs showed another side of Scruggs' genius by playing the lead guitar, note for note, the way the world's most famous banjo player had played guitar on that song.

The common denominator shared by the acts taking time to play, preach or pray was that they were friends of the man they were "sending home."

Bela Fleck, an acclaimed banjo "modernist," described how his "life was never the same" after he first heard Scruggs' banjo when he turned on "The Beverly Hillbillies" television show and heard "The Ballad of Jed Clampett."

Scruggs and Flatt, who died in 1979, are best-known in popular culture for that song about "a man named Jed" and for "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," popularized in the gritty 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde."

After a spoken tribute by Charlie Daniels, Emmylou Harris teamed with Gill and Jon Randall Stewart for the heavenly "The Other Side of Life."

"I was thinking how lucky we all are to have lived at the same time as Earl Scruggs," Harris said.

After The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's John McEuen teamed with Jim Mills for "The Carolina Traveler" and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs pronounced the eulogy, the stage was turned over to Marty Stuart, who performed "Who Will Sing For Me," a Flatt & Scruggs examination of death.

That led up to Gill's teary "Go Rest High" farewell to Scruggs, which preceded the video salute that concluded with "Precious Memories."

While the crowd jumped from their pews and applauded each performance, the longest and loudest ovation came for the man in the silver-colored casket, just before he was escorted from the auditorium where he first performed in 1945.

Jordan Strauss / WireImage file

Earl Scruggs performs on day one of the 2009 Stagecoach: California's Country Music Festival at the Empire Polo Field on April 25, 2009, in Indio, Calif.

Banjo innovator and bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, died on Wednesday at a Nashville hospital at age 88.

He had been in failing health for some time, according to his son, Gary Scruggs, who played bass guitar with his father. Talking about his father's death, he said with a cracking voice: "He‘s 88 and it's a slow process."

A four-time Grammy winner, Scruggs was perhaps best known in popular culture for "The Ballad of Jed Clampett," the theme song for "The Beverly Hillbillies" television program, and for "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," a Flatt & Scruggs classic which was used in the 1967 classic film, "Bonnie and Clyde."

While he dabbled in all forms of music, and was at home in the company of all creative musicians, he was among the first to popularize what his former boss, Bill Monroe, referred to as bluegrass music.

After breaking with Monroe, Scruggs and his guitar-playing friend, Lester Flatt, formed Flatt & Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys.

Scruggs' style of banjo playing set him apart. Rather than flailing at the banjo strings, as most of his contemporaries did, he delicately hit the strings with three right fingers, coaxing the instrument to produce precise melodies.

His style influenced the likes of The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and others who took up the banjo because of the playing of Scruggs, a native of Shelby, North Carolina.

The "Scruggs picking style" was saluted in a statement released after his death by Recording Academy President and Chief Executive Neil Portnow, who said that he "helped popularize the banjo and helped change country music."

Those who played with the banjo wizard mourned his loss.

"I will miss my friend," Mac Wiseman, an original flattop guitarist with the Foggy Mountain Boys, said from his Nashville home. Wiseman, 86, said his own maladies will keep him from Sunday's funeral at the Ryman Auditorium, the former home of the Grand Ole Opry in downtown Nashville.

"I'm not getting around too well," said Wiseman. "I'll remember him as he was when we were together."

Marty Stuart, who broke into bluegrass music as a child prodigy with Flatt, was performing on Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. But his wife, classic country singer Connie Smith, said Scruggs will be missed.

"It leaves a hole in your heart," she said. "He's just a part of our life." She said her husband would perform at the funeral.

Dixie Hall, a longtime friend of the Scruggs family and wife of Tom T. Hall, the great storyteller and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, said Scruggs "was a dear friend and Louise was too."

Louise Scruggs, who helped guide her husband's career, died in 2006. "It's good to know they are together," said Dixie Hall.

Tom T. Hall teamed with Scruggs on what many consider among the best bluegrass albums, "The Storyteller and the Banjoman" in 1982.

"You know there's a lot of people out there, a lot of others. There's one Earl," Hall said.

Scruggs is survived also by a second son, Randy.

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