The king of the five-string banjo has finger picked his last. Along with Lester Flatt, Chubby Wise and of course Bill Monroe, he invented a new American jazz form. And of them, he was the last to go. If there’s a heaven, let’s hope they get their own instruments, and not harps.

[Update a couple minutes later]

(Transplanted Brit) Andrew Stuttaford remembers him.

Here he is (via Alex Massey), playing his signature classic with Steve Martin, who has some thoughts here.

[Late afternoon update]

I should add that, with all respect to Lester Flatt, he wasn’t the pioneer that the others were — he was just in the right place at the right time. He is known primarily for the “Flatt lick,” which he didn’t invent, but did popularize, but as any bio will tell you, he didn’t want to move into the sixties, and he wasn’t a real flat picker — he really just played rhythm. It took the likes of Doc Watson, Clarence White, Dan McCrary, Norman Blake, Tony Rice (and others I’m probably leaving out) to catch the guitar up to the rest of instruments in the genre, in terms of virtuosity.