Hate to lose this guy.

Earl Scruggs, the banjo playing, singing and composing great whose twanging bluegrass themes for TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies and the Bonnie and Clyde movie achieved Top of the Chart status in the ’60s, died Wednesday of natural causes at a Nashville hospital, his son Gary Scruggs told CNN. He was 88.

Everybody by now saw this, which was the best moment in the history of the David Letterman show – and not least because Letterman wasn’t actually talking in it.

But here’s somethin’ a little older, as a little demonstration of what the ol’ boy could do with that there banjo…

We’re gonna miss him. Earl Scruggs gave us modern country music, and he was a classy ol’ guy who reminded people of a day when you could just be good at what you do and make it in the music business without building some sort of persona as an asshat.

Be nice if that day would come back.