Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby

ISSUE #31 MMUSICMAG.COM ISSUE #31 MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A backstage than in the audience. Bruce was How has the record been received? Skaggs get up there to sing a song. Finally doing his pop stuff. He’d had a few good- It debuted at No. 1 on the bluegrass chart. he called for me to come up onstage. He sized hits out, and I was going up the charts It doesn’t take a whole lot of sales to do said, “What do you play, boy?” I said, “I in country. He asked me to sit in, but it was that, but still. And the bluegrass community play mandolin.” He pulled off his big Gibson a short meeting. We had to leave right after has embraced it more than they did the F5 mandolin, and put it on me. Here I am, the show and didn’t see each other for years. first one—radio is playing it, bloggers are playing this mandolin and singing a song Then I was hosting some television shows blogging about it. Maybe it’s more bluegrass with the band, “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in the than the first, but we were trying to find our Man?”—a very appropriate song for a kid. mid-’90s and had Bruce on as a guest. He’d way back then. I don’t know what he saw in me, but just released his record Hot House, and on I know what I saw in him, and that was a the cover was a picture of Bill Monroe and Acoustic music has grown dramatically. man who was willing to humble himself Charlie Parker, so that struck my interest. I I’ve said for a long time that bluegrass is the in front of a crowd and let a 6-year-old asked Bruce then if he would be interested real hope of country. Country music is right come onstage. And I saw a man who was in doing a Bill Monroe tribute, which I called and left and up and down, mixtures of this and passionate about the songs he was singing Big Mon when it came out a few years later. that—it’s so pop now. They’re even doing rap and was such an incredible musician. I was I wanted nonbluegrass artists who’d been around country. Young people are listening marked by this music from an early age. influenced by his music. Bruce was the first to acts like Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens, I’ve always played it with different bands—I guy to say yes and the first to record, and and Mumford and Sons, who play acoustic cut bluegrass with Emmylou Harris’ band, we decided after that recording that we had and have banjos. Old Crow Medicine Show and even all my country music hits had a to do more. is carrying a torch for Tennessee string-band taste of bluegrass. music of the ’20s and ’30s. Young people Why did you want to work with Bruce? want to have fun, especially at outdoor What’s the future of bluegrass? Listening to him play on the Dirt Band’s festivals. The kids are trying to be hippies. There are plenty in bluegrass who would put version of “The Valley Road” let me know They’re wearing the clothes but taking daily their hands up and say, “Don’t come into our that he liked bluegrass. I remember telling showers and driving in with the BMWs and music,” but I love to put my hands out and Bruce, “Those rolls you’re playing with your right hand, they sound like a banjo player.” I Erick Anderson Erick asked him if he’d ever gone to any bluegrass festivals when he was a kid in Virginia and he said, “Oh, yeah.” He loves that style of music and rootsy music. We just felt like we had a connection, and that was certainly proven RRickyicky SSkaggs,kaggs, Bruce HHornsbyornsby true when we went into the studio. What was the next step? RICKY SKAGGS He sent me some songs. One was “Dreaded Spoon.” Bruce told me, “My dad used to take a big whack out of our ice cream cones when & BRUCE HORNSBY we’d be in the back seat. He had this old nasty spoon in the glove compartment, and Two master musicians team up for an exhilarating bluegrass project I wrote a song about it.” So we did that, and Erick Anderson Erick he had two or three other things he liked, BLUEGRASS HAS RULES, AND styles, from jazz to classical to bluegrass. of live tracks recorded during that tour. and then I sent him a few. We just wanted although Ricky Skaggs is very good at Still, fans of both wondered how these Backed by a stunningly tight acoustic to get in the studio. Seeing that we were playing by those rules, he’s furthered his musical aces would find common ground. band, including members of Skaggs’ group both singers and instrumentalists, and we career by breaking them. A child prodigy, the The seeds were sown seven years earlier Kentucky Thunder, they run through classics had a great band, it seemed to be a great fit. virtuoso mandolinist and vocalist detoured when Hornsby and Skaggs collaborated by the likes of Monroe and Ralph Stanley, as At Skaggs Place Studio, Hendersonville, Tenn., 2013 from the genre in the 1980s and early ’90s on a tribute record to bluegrass master Bill well as Hornsby originals—including a radical Were there any challenges making into mainstream country, scoring nearly a Monroe. When they got around to making the take on “The Way It Is,” his 1986 chart- music for piano and mandolin? Mercedes, or dozen No. 1 hits and a shelf full of Grammys. record Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby, it topper. Skaggs spoke with us about why ‘I remember telling Bruce, Sonically there are similarities in a lot of the a big pickup But it was Skaggs’ 2007 collaborative came naturally—and wasn’t so much a hybrid their ongoing collaboration works so well. noting and a lot of the sound. When Bruce truck. album with pianist-singer-songwriter Bruce as something new for both. And when the “Those rolls you’re playing, and I do his song “Mandolin Rain” with just Hornsby that raised eyebrows. Like Skaggs, pair set out on the road after its release, How did you and Bruce meet? the two of us, I swear there are times when Why do Hornsby scored hits—in the pop and rock they expanded on and refined the concept. We first met around 1990—a Fourth of I can’t tell if it’s him or me playing. There’s you both love they sound like a banjo player.”’ world—in the ’80s before turning his singular Now Skaggs and Hornsby, both 59, July festival in Elmira, N.Y. It wasn’t very a beautiful mesh of music that happens. Monroe’s keyboard gifts toward a kaleidoscope of have released Cluck Ol’ Hen, a collection well promoted; there were more people How do you make a big piano work with a music? say, “Hey, you’re welcome in here.” I did a teeny mandolin? It’s hard to explain, but the My dad bought me a mandolin when I was 5. thing with Jack White and the Raconteurs, love and respect I have for him is key, and He paid $5 for it, probably at a pawnshop. and that was so much fun. I want to be ‘I want to be inclusive—to be able to expand on this I believe it’s the same with him. When we When I was 6, I went to see Bill Monroe inclusive—to be able to expand on this music walk out, for the next two hours we’re going at a high school close to my house, and is very important to me. music is very important to me.’ to do what our talent can do. the neighbors started requesting little Ricky –Jeff Tamarkin 62 63 M mag 31.indd 62 11/21/13 9:05 AM M mag 31.indd 63 11/21/13 9:06 AM.

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