Ricky Skaggs was sharing the stage with bluegrass legend Bill Monroe at the age of 6 and over his career has won enough Grammys for his country and bluegrass recordings to fill a few rooms.
In his new autobiography, Kentucky Traveler: My Life in Music (HarperCollins, $25.99), which he co-wrote with Eddie Dean, the 59-year-old singer and multi-instrumentalist recalls that even hearing the music that has been such a major force in his life, much less playing it, was a struggle.
“A lot of times we would sit in [my grandfather’s] truck and listen to the Grand Ole Opry, away from the house in the barn where there wasn’t any electric lines,” Skaggs says. “It was a little clearer without all the static. The power lines would make it a little harder to come in clear.”
Skaggs also laments that he and his sister had to trudge through snow to his grandfather’s house to see The Beatles for the first time on The Ed Sullivan Show because Kentucky television reception turned CBS broadcasts in the area into “icy snow” on his parents’ TV.
“We kind of had to work on it. It wasn’t as easy as it is nowadays. With digital downloads, can you imagine what it would have been like 45 years ago?” He adds, “I think if it had just been readily available, I might not have appreciated it that much.”
In Kentucky Traveler, Skaggs discusses what it was like to play with another Kentucky-raised teenager who later hit it big named Keith Whitley and what it was like to have Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris as mentors. He also candidly discusses his divorce from his first wife, Brenda Stanley, and how he almost lost his son Andrew after a vehicle wreck.
“Divorce is always painful, although me and my ex-wife have always gotten along good for years, ” he says. “With the two kids involved, Mandy and Andrew, it was hard for me to write it back then because I knew that when they read it it would bring up some memories for them again that they had dealt with. I couldn’t avoid it.”
Skaggs also spends much of the book explaining how discussing his Christian faith with audiences during the 1980s occasionally alienated CBS Records, for whom he recorded hits like “Crying My Heart Out Over You,” “Country Boy” and “I Don’t Care.”
“In a nice way, I tried to get them to explain to me what was different about faith. You certainly can’t change a leopard’s spots or a zebra’s stripes. It’s who they are,” he says. “I absolutely know there were times I went too far and talked too much, and it seemed inappropriate to talk about it. I didn’t want to show off my faith. It’s part of the music. It’s part of the culture of the South, where I came from.
“When the record label told me to stop it, I took offense to it sometimes. I shouldn’t have stayed offended, anyway. You can’t stay offended. Being a Christian, it’s kind of like the Christian bill of rights. We don’t have rights to that, so that’s the way it goes.”
Since 1981, he has been married to Sharon White-Skaggs of The Whites and both now record on their own Skaggs Family Records label. During the 1990s, Skaggs switched from playing a Nashville-friendly sound and returned to his bluegrass roots.
“That was one of the great things about getting out of Music Row and moving to Hendersonville. Sharon and I are working on a duet record, which is something that we’ve wanted to do forever. We’ve got five songs cut so far,” he says.
“We wanted to do that back in the ’80s. We had Duet of the Year at the Country Music Association for ‘Love Can’t Get Better Than This’ in 1987. But she was on Warner/Curb, and I was on CBS/ Sony, and they were arch rivals with each other. They sure wouldn’t want to share each other’s acts. It was kind of a bummer, but it was a sign of the times and the way the business was at the time. Twenty-five years later, we’re able to come out with something that’s totally ours. It’s great to make music with the one you love.”
Curiously, Skaggs’ move to more traditional bluegrass has actually helped him land a more diverse set of collaborators. He says he wouldn’t have had the chance to play with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra if he were still playing the music he did during the 1980s, nor would he have had the chance to team up with rocker Jack White and The Raconteurs.
Since 2007, he has also had a successful partnership with lightning-fingered pianist Bruce Hornsby. The two have released a new collection of live recordings titled Cluck Ol’ Hen (Ingrooves), which features a surprisingly potent bluegrass reworking of Hornsby’s biggest hit “The Way It Is.” The two are touring to support it; no dates have been scheduled in Arkansas.
When asked why he and Hornsby have had a productive partnership, he replies, “The thing I love about playing with Bruce is I think that he’s always looking for the challenge of playing something that he’s never played before. He’s always loved bluegrass and always had kind of an affinity for it for a long, long time.”
Despite the acclaim he has received, Skaggs regularly mentions what others have done for him and how he isn’t intimidated by others’ talents. He seeks them out.
“I think the key to my success, especially since I put a band together in the early’80s, was to put together a band with musicians I knew were better than me, who would challenge me and make me want to do better. They’re always telling me, ‘Great job, boss,’ and I’m thinking, ‘You guys are blowing me away.’ I think when they feel appreciated, they work harder. I know I certainly do.”
Style, Pages 51 on 09/22/2013