Louise Scruggs was a pivotal behind-the-scenes force in popularizing bluegrass music. Born Anne Louise Certain on Feb. 17, 1927, in the Grant community of Smith County, she grew up on a farm but hoped to work in an office. Her grandmother played organ and guitar, and her grandfather took her to the Grand Ole Opry several times. After graduating from Watertown High School in 1945, she moved to Nashville, where her widowed grandmother lived, to seek accounting work. On Dec. 14, 1946, she saw Earl Scruggs performing with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys at the Opry, playing his innovative rolling three-finger banjo. Louise met Earl, and they married on April 18, 1948. Shortly before their wedding, Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt left Monroe and formed their own act. As Flatt and Scruggs, they lived in Danville, Virginia, then Bristol, Tennessee, and then Knoxville in 1949, where their first child, Gary, was born in May of that year. Sponsored by Martha White Flour, the group moved to Nashville in 1953 to perform on WSM's morning schedule. Their second child, Randy, was born in Nashville in August 1953, and their third son, Steve, in February 1958. Flatt and Scruggs began appearing on the Grand Ole Opry in 1955, and a Martha White-sponsored television show increased their popularity. Beginning in 1955, Louise took over management of Flatt and Scruggs and from 1956 managed Earl and Lester together until their breakup in 1969. As bluegrass lost airtime with the rise of rock 'n' roll and the Nashville Sound, she sought wider audiences, booking Earl alone at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959, which led to campus and television engagements for Flatt and Scruggs. Recognizing that bluegrass, which originated in 1946, could reach beyond its traditional southeastern audience and connect with folk listeners, she helped shape concept albums alongside the duo's singles, including Folk Songs of Our Land, Hard Travelin', and At Vanderbilt University. She distinguished their albums by commissioning cover paintings by Thomas Allen, wrote liner notes for some releases, and formed a music publishing company for the duo's original songs and adaptations of traditional material. When Earl, backed by Louise and their sons, wanted to move the repertoire in a more contemporary direction and Lester Flatt resisted, the duo split in 1969. Earl then organized the Earl Scruggs Revue with his sons, and Louise booked and managed the group while also coordinating Earl's later appearances and albums. Guided by her belief in finding ways to reach a higher level, Louise Certain Scruggs died in Nashville on Feb. 2, 2006, and in 2010 she was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.