Legendary banjo player Earl Scruggs died yesterday at a hospital in Nashville, TN. He was 88. According to the New York Times, Scruggs died of natural causes.

The bluegrass pioneer’s distinctive picking style (known as “Scruggs-Style Picking”) helped to shape the sound of the genre, while influencing countless musicians, including Jerry Garcia and Bela Fleck, the latter of whom called Scruggs “certainly the best” banjo player of the three-finger style.

“I didn’t really start to get serious about music until I was eighteen and I heard my first bluegrass music,” said Garcia in a 1994 interview. “I heard Earl Scruggs play five-string banjo and I thought, that’s something I have to be able to do. I fell in love with the sound and I started earnestly trying to do exactly what I was hearing. That became the basis for everything else—that was my model.”

Scruggs, a native of Shelby, NC, first emerged onto the bluegrass scene in 1945 when he joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, stars of the classic radio show “Grand Ole Opry.” A few years later, Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt departed the band to form their own bluegrass outfit, the Foggy Mountain Boys (later known simply as Flatt and Scruggs), a group that is widely regarded as the most famous band in bluegrass history. The group is known most famously for their signature tunes “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” used as the theme song of the ’60s hit show The Beverly Hillbillies.

In 2004, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry. Scruggs was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008. Scruggs most recent release came with 2003’s Three Pickers. He also embraced a recent country/bluegrass revival in recent years, performing at festivals including Stage Coach in 2009.

The bluegrass legend is survived by his two sons, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.