Blessed by Bluegrass Ricky Skaggs to bring superstar bluegrass history & talent to Kenneth Threadgill Series

By Lance Martin Special for the Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series

GREENVILLE, Texas – Lest there be any doubt, Ricky Skaggs was born to play bluegrass.

If there were a Mount Rushmore of bluegrass music, it would be certain to include the likes of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and Ralph Stanley. Considering that Skaggs played with all of them by the time he was 16 years old, he’s generally considered at the head of the second-generation of bluegrass greats.

Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder will visit Greenville’s Municipal Auditorium on Thursday, May 2, for the latest Kenneth Threadgill Series concert.

Ricky Skagg’s latest album, “Music to My Ears” delivers his classic bluegrass sounds and features a collaboration with the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibbs and tributes to both bluegrass Hall of Fame members Bill Monroe and Doc Watson.

Skaggs started playing the mandolin at the age of 5 and grew up harmonizing and picking with his parents at churches, fairs and pie suppers near his hometown of Cordell, Ky. His first introduction to fame came at six years old when he was attending a Bill Monroe concert. Local residents insisted Monroe, the famed Father of Bluegrass, let “little Ricky Skaggs” play.

Skaggs, now 58, still remembers it vividly. “I’ve got it embedded in my mind,” he said. “I remember walking up to the front of the stage and him reaching down to pick me up like a sack of feed and placing me on stage next to him.”

Now a country and bluegrass legend in his own right, Skaggs played “Ruby” on a mandolin that Monroe took off and helped adjust the strap onto the youngster. The crowd went wild.

The next time he saw Monroe about 10 years later, Skaggs was already playing professionally at the age of 15 or 16 with Ralph Stanley, a Threadgill Series alumnus. Monroe appeared on the same show in Columbus, Ohio, and Skaggs said they talked about that fateful night when they first met. “He said, ‘I believe you was 12 or 13 wasn’t you?’” Skaggs said of the conversation with Monroe. “I said, ‘No, sir, I was six.”

“I can’t believe I let a six year old on stage with me,“ Monroe responded, according to Skaggs.

“Well, you did, and I’ve got witnesses,” Skaggs told him. “Many of them.”

Skaggs said that Monroe’s gracefulness that night left a lasting impression.

“I don’t know what he saw in me that night but I know what I saw in him,” Skaggs said. “I saw a man that was not too big a star that he couldn’t share a spotlight with a little hometown kid for a song. That meant a lot to me as a child.”

He noted how difficult it would be for a professional musician to simply hand over their primary instrument to a little kid that they didn’t know.

“It was a Lloyd Loar F5 Gibson mandolin,” Skaggs said. “I’ve got three of those now and know what they’re worth. I wouldn’t even want a six year old holding my Loar, afraid that they’d drop it.”

Skaggs has a picture from that second meeting of Monroe in an autobiography titled “Kentucky Traveler” that will be published in August.

The autobiography will chronicle an incredible career that includes enough legendary musicians to create a Hall of Fame just from people he’s played with.

Asked if there was a moment when he realized that music could turn into a career, Skaggs said there was no singular event, just a realization that his talent might have a greater purpose.

“When you’re a kid, getting to go fishing with grandpa is just about as big as playing music with Bill Monroe,” he said. “At the time, you don’t really see that one is more important than the other. I had a lot of old preachers that would come up to me and almost prophesy over me and say ‘God’s going to use your talent young man.’”

Skaggs said when he didn’t see other kids his age playing music, much less to the caliber he was playing, he realized his talent was a blessing.

“I figured it was probably a real gift and real special,” he said. “I figured if I was given that, then there’s probably going to be a vocation, a way of making a living with it. But I had no idea things would work out the way they have – I didn’t see that one coming, especially at a young age.”

The opportunities are something Skaggs credits to God.

“Meeting all the people I’ve met, it’s just so amazing to go back and look at what all happened and all the connections made in my life,” Skaggs said. “I feel like it was all God-inspired and God-called. His hand has been on my life all my life. It’s an amazing story.”

Skaggs said the Greenville audience can expect a show that includes both traditional bluegrass and many of his country music hits.

“If they like bluegrass, they’re going to love this show,” he said. “We always try to tell the story of how bluegrass started, how it was birthed and the whole Bill Monroe story.”

They’ll include many of his No. 1 country hits like “Crying My Heart Out Over You,” “Highway 40 Blues,” “Uncle Pen” and “Cajun Moon.” Skaggs will also include songs from his newest album, “Music to My Ears,” which includes a song that mentions the East Texas town of Kilgore in a lyric “I met my girlfiend in Kilgore, Texas” which has a small personal connection for Skaggs.

“(I) came through this long trip with Ralph Stanley on an old Air Coach gasoline motor bus,” he said. “I think top speed was 65 downhill with the clutch down. That was my first trip to Texas. I met Sharon that day.”

Sharon refers to his wife, Sharon White, a member of The Whites, and native of Wichita Falls. They each married and divorced other people following their first introduction, but later married each other in 1981. The two won Vocal Duo of the Year award from the Country Music Academy in 1987 for “Love Can’t Get Any Better Than This.”

Skagg’s new “Music to My Ears” also includes a song called “You Can’t Hurt Ham” co-written with longtime writer/producer Gordon Kennedy about an old Bill Monroe saying.

“(Mr. Monroe) was hungry as a bear one night and the banjo player had some country ham and biscuits nearly a couple days old in his bunk,” Skaggs said. “He said, ‘Boy, bring me them biscuits, you know you can’t hurt ham,’ like ham’s not going to go bad.”

Skaggs notes the contrast in material for Kennedy, who wrote a Song of the Year for Eric Clapton, “Change the World.”

“When he gets with me, he writes ‘You Can’t Hurt Ham,’” Skaggs said. “So I hate dragging him down. We all got to start somewhere so that was a good writing situation.”

Skaggs notes brisket and Bob Wills among his loves of things from Texas. He recalls fiddle-player Johnny Gimble, who was once a member of Wills’ Texas Playboys, telling him about the talent of fellow fiddler, Keith Coleman who also played with Wills.

“Gimble said he was like a freak,” Skaggs said. “His intonations, he always knew what to play. Bob had some really incredible players with him.”

And just as talent gravitated to Wills, Skaggs gets approached frequently by musicians from across genres.

His new album includes an appearance with Barry Gibbs of the Bee Gees, whom he met when the Bee Gees were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the same year as Monroe. Skaggs has worked with Jack White of the White Stripes and Raconteurs, Phish, Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats, and Bruce Hornsby to name just a few.

Hornsby and Skaggs will release a live CD in August, recorded at shows they played in 2007 to support an album they released that year.

“It’s such a great record,” Skaggs said. “It’s got so much life to it... hearing him play bluegrass is just incredible.

The widespread appeal of bluegrass and its influence on popular music is no surprise to Skaggs, who himself found wild popularity with mainstream country songs that had more than just a dash of bluegrass.

“I’ve always known there was something about bluegrass music,” he said. “When I came to Nashville, I knew invariably by listening to the commercials that was on TV, there was dozens of commercials out there with a banjo, with a fiddle, with a mandolin. This was back in the 1970s but it hasn’t stopped. There’s still something about the ear-catching infectious music of bluegrass.” Skaggs said many of the popular bands today are finding the same kind of response he did by including the traditional instruments of bluegrass.

“Mumford and Sons, Zac Brown, all these guys, they’re on to something,” Skaggs said. “They know it as well. I think that was part of my success back in the early ‘80s in country music was mixing the mandolin, banjo and fiddle just as hot as the electric guitar and pedal steel guitar … they were lead instruments and not just backing instruments.”

Skaggs recalls a conversation in the spring of 1983 with Joe Casey, who headed the promotions department at Epic Records, when they had decided to release “Highway 40 Blues” as a single and Casey wanted Skaggs to edit the song down for radio.

“He said, ‘Radio’s not going to play a whole minute instrumental – four instrumental solos in a row,’ Skaggs said. “ I said Joe, it’s part of the song. It’s the ride. It’s the highway, the fun, the fabric of the song. He said, “It’s not going to work, I’m telling you.’ I said, ‘Trust me. We do this song on the road and people don’t start yawning while we’re doing these solos.’”

The song quickly became Skaggs’ fifth consecutive No. 1 hit. He’s had nearly a dozen No. 1 songs on the country charts and numerous bluegrass and gospel hits.

When asked about his place in music history, Skaggs says that he’s still just writing it as he goes and knows that the music is ultimately what will last because “a record is forever.”

“I love talking about the elders and now I am one,” he said. “I still honor Ralph and Doc (Watson) and Earl (Scruggs) and Mr. Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs. I look around and the crowds are getting younger; I’m getting older. My band kinda looks at me as I did Mr. Monroe back when I was much, much younger.”

Skaggs said he enjoys working with younger artists and describes that as a “perk” of being an elder.

“When I walked into studio with Jack White and the Raconteurs, they all stood up,” he said. “They were so nice and so respectful. This is amazing.”

One of the most satisfying rewards of his career has been the establishment of his own music label, Skaggs Family Records, because, Skaggs said, “I can carve out my own destiny musically.”

And that destiny started with family and will continue with family, as illustrated by the cover photo of his upcoming book. It features the only remaining photo of Skaggs playing a mandolin his father, Hobert, bought him when he was five years old.

He describes people in the photo, including his grandfather, cousin and father and how it’s a metaphor for his career.

“There I am in the center of my family,” Skaggs said. “That’s what the book is about. How my dad was such a big part of getting my career (started), working with me, and how instrumental God used him in my life to be a constant.”

And that photo also reflects the passion that Skaggs says he has always brought to his music.

“There’s a determination in my face and look in my eyes,” he said. “When you look at that YouTube video of me with Flatt & Scruggs (from his appearance on their variety show at the age of seven), there’s a look in my eyes. When I’m playing, that’s where I’m at – I’m not somewhere else.” And come Thursday night, Skaggs, now a bluegrass legend in his own right, will be in Greenville, Texas, playing the music he was born to play.

[Tickets for the concert can be purchased online via www.showtimeattheGMA.com, by calling 877-4359849, or in person at the Greenville Municipal Auditorium box office at 2821 Washington St. in downtown Greenville.]

Martin is a former Greenville resident who writes on behalf of the Kenneth Threadgill Concert Series from his home in Waco, Texas.