Scruggs worked with many artists, including Michael Card, The Talbot Brothers, Waylon Jennings, George Strait and Emmylou Harris. His career began in 1970 with the release of All the Way Home, a collaboration with his older brother Gary. Scruggs recorded his debut solo LP Crown of Jewels in 1998. He played the electric bass on John Hartford’s 1972 album Aereo-Plain.

In 1972, Scruggs released another album recorded with Gary: The Scruggs Brothers. Reviewing in Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said: “Significant that two musicians so close to the Flatt-picking roots—though it ought to be remembered that their father is an entertainer, not a mountaineer—have put together such a doleful-sounding country-rock band in the face of the good-time sippin’-that-wine stuff the more famous guys are selling.”

In 1994, Scruggs teamed with Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson to contribute the song “Keep on the Sunny Side” to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Scruggs died after a short illness on April 17, 2018 at the age of 64.