Lester Flatt - There are few guitarist/lead singers who are better known in bluegrass music than Lester Raymond Flatt, probably none. His long career with Earl Scruggs and earlier with Bill Monroe made him a legend. And his strong rhythm guitar playing helped make bluegrass music the identifiable entity that it is.Lester Flatt was born near Sparta, Tennessee, June 19, 1914. He was one of nine children. Young Lester was taught by his father to play the drop-thumb frailing banjo but could never master it so he quit to divert his energies elsewhere. By age seven, he was playing guitar and singing in the church choir.

After Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs parted ways in 1969, Flatt reassembled many of the Foggy Mountain Boys, renamed the group Nashville Grass, and toured very successfully until his death in 1979. Unlike Scruggs, who with his sons moved on to music that was only marginally country, Flatt and the Grass stuck to traditional bluegrass material. Even without Scruggs, the band shone, and Flatt's vocals, musical direction, and taste received the credit they had so long deserved. ~ David Vinopal, All Music Guide