Louise Certain
Pseudonym for
Earl Scruggs
Musician · d. 2006
Louise Certain was the maiden name of Earl Scruggs’s wife Anne Louise Certain Scruggs — used by Earl as a songwriting pen name throughout his career with Flatt & Scruggs and beyond. Louise was far more than a name on a royalty sheet: she became the first woman to manage a major country music act and ran the Flatt & Scruggs business operation for decades. The songs credited to “Louise Certain” were in fact written (solely or co-written) by Earl Scruggs.
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- Born Anne Louise Certain on February 17, 1927, in Grant, Tennessee.
- Married Earl Scruggs on April 18, 1948.
- In 1955 became the manager of Flatt & Scruggs — by many accounts the first woman to manage a major bluegrass or country act, and a major force in moving the band onto college campuses and into the folk-revival mainstream.
- Continued to manage Earl’s career after the Flatt & Scruggs split in 1969 and through the Earl Scruggs Revue years.
- Died February 2, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 78, from respiratory disease.
- Posthumously awarded the Joe Talbot Award in 2006 and inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
- Earl Scruggs was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1985 and the IBMA Hall of Honor in 1991.
