At 6 years old, Kentucky native Ricky Skaggs got his first taste of bluegrass by going onstage with legend Bill Monroe.
By his teens, he had left high school to tour with country star Keith Whitley as the opening act for Ralph Stanley. Skaggs and Whitley would soon morph into Stanley’s band, creating the famed Clinch Mountain Boys.
Skaggs’ career includes work with the greats of Americana music including Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, J.D. Crowe and the Country Gentlemen. He’s veered into other genres too, sharing stages with Phish, Bruce Hornsby and Barry Gibb. In 1989, he helped launch the resurgent interest in Dolly Parton’s career by producing her 1989 “White Limozeen” album.
Skaggs is returning to Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center for the Arts this month with the Kentucky Thunder Christmas band for an annual holiday tour.
He spoke with WHRV’s Folk Music Producer Barry Graham about his career, the music industry and more before his local performance.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Barry Graham: Ricky, you're one of the few artists who I think can really forge the divide between traditional and progressive bluegrass music. In fact, if you think about it, you have really been able to forge that vibe between all the genres of music you've shared the stage with, with Bill Monroe and Phish. That's not an easy thing to do.
Ricky Skaggs: I just love music, and I was made, created to play music. I know that I didn't know it so much when I was five years old, but my mom told me when I was young, she said, “Listen, you have a gift that a lot of people don't have, and you take this and keep this as gift and grow it as a gift, and don't you let it go to your head.”
B.G: Let's talk about the early years working with people like Ralph Stanley and Keith Whitley and J.D. Crow. In fact, rounder 0044 just, just a quick question for you. Are you amazed at how that is still considered maybe one of the greatest bluegrass releases ever?
R.S: Yeah, I really am. When I listened to that record, it was like, a new south. I mean, it was like a new day for this music, for bluegrass, because there (were) contemporary sounding things.
Tony didn't try to sing like Lester Flatt or Carter Stanley. Tony just sung like himself, and he grew up in California, and then moved to Virginia and had those roots and North Carolina. … And, of course, J.D.’s banjo style is directly from Earl Scruggs. But he also loved Merle Travis, and he also loved Chet Atkins, great guitar players and so, you know, J.D. would play guitar riffs and kind of things that were a little unorthodox to Earl Scruggs style playing.
Then having Jerry Douglas with his dobro additions especially on the slow songs – that was just really, really needed, something to play those licks and stuff that Jerry played. It just was a new sounding bluegrass style and it inspired a generation of new bluegrass kids coming up just like what Flatt and Scruggs and (Bill) Monroe together kind of did for my generation back in the ’50s.
I was born in ’54 and so getting to hear Flatt and Scruggs with Monroe, you know, wow, that was the beginnings of bluegrass music. And then to hear Flatt and Scruggs just by themselves after they left Mr. Monroe. So there was that 0044 record and it just received an award for one of the … most important collections of music in the Library of Congress.
B.G: You ventured pretty hard and also very successfully into mainstream country music in the ’80s, and you were hugely successful. I saw an interview with you once where you're talking about how many trailers and trucks you had out on the road. What was the driving factor leading you back into a more traditional sound of bluegrass?
R.S: I was getting a little disenchanted (with the way) country was going. It was the 12 and 14 busses with one group having all those busses going out and touring and the big jam and all of that in the huge arenas. I knew that as much as that would be fun to step on stage with 50,000 people that I just didn't have, I don't know, I didn't have it in my heart to really press through that.
I mean, I had a lot of employees, busses and tractor trailers and all that kind of stuff, you know, but I don't know. I recorded a record one time called “A Simple Life.” And I'm a Christian. I think most people know that, know my history and all, and I just believe that God still speaks. It would be so boring if I didn't hear God speak to me about something and it's not audible in my heart (and) in my spirit. But I really felt like that God was calling me to a simple life, a simpler kind of life.
That was on a CBS record when I was still doing country, Mac McNally wrote that song, and just to double up on the word that I got, then Harley Allen writes a song called “Simple Life,” so it was like, out of the mouth of two witnesses the Lord was just saying, “Hey, I want you, I told you, I want you to simplify your life. Where you can, or you can go off the beaten path … if you have to get in a van and go, I send you and not worry about a bus go, this is what I want you to do.” And so all of that just kind of came to a head, especially then when Mr. Monroe passed away, I just felt like it was, it was tag, you're it.
B.G: How has the music industry changed today? I can tell you personally that I used to get in an avalanche of CDs. Now it's a slow trickle. Most of the labels have more or less collapsed, you have the rise of independent labels. I know you have your own label there. Music comes to me through downloads. It doesn't come to me through CDs. What is this change in the music meant to an established performer like yourself?
R.S: Well, I miss cassettes. I don't miss eight tracks. I miss cassettes, and I miss CDs. I've still got tons of them here in my house. … I don't have a CD player now in my Lincoln, so I stilI listen on digitals, downloads and stuff now, but it's amazing.
The stronghold that the record labels used to have selling stuff is just kind of – man, that whole world has changed. I think it changes the way people even approach music. We used to sit down with a cassette recorder and play and write songs and that kind of stuff. Now you can record them down on your iPhone. And so the whole industry, industry has changed.
That's one of the things that this band, Kentucky Thunder has that you just don't see the big country bands out there on the road having the musicianship. It's all based around the lead singer and him walking around on stage, either with a guitar or or just with a headset on, or whatever and the band is kind of the backup band. But, man, bluegrass is still one of the only kinds of music genres that's out there that really features the band.
I mean, I'm the lead singer in the band, but I am in the band, I'm not separated from them. And in my country days, I treated it as a bluegrass band. I had the best steel guitar players, I had the best electric guitar players and fiddle players and banjo players. We just felt like it was a place to showcase my roots and the roots of this music, and be able to blend them successfully, blend them with modern country music at that time. So it’s changed. It's changed a lot, but my focus has not changed, so I'm still out playing bluegrass and now, this time of year we're gearing up for our Christmas tour. That's one that's going to be great fun. We're going to have to do, you know, songs that we only do maybe once a year. That's that's going to take a little brushing up on
We're excited about it and excited to be coming back to the Ferguson Center. What a great venue to play. We love it.
Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder Christmas perform Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center for the Arts. More information and tickets are at the Ferguson Center’s website.
