By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Bluegrass fans have a lot to look forward to this summer. In addition to our regularly scheduled bluegrass festivals and events, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder will be kicking off the Kentucky Christian University Summer Concert series on June 20. The series will be held at the Nash Chapel on the KCU Campus starting at 7 pm. Skaggs is a Kentucky native, growing up in Cordell in Lawrence County, whose career has spanned over half a century in Bluegrass and Gospel Music.
Skaggs has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1982, been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Musicians Hall of Fame, the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. And in 2020, Ricky Skaggs was awarded the National Medal of Arts for his contributions to the American Music Industry.
“We’re looking forward to it,” Skaggs said of his upcoming performance at KCU. “We’ve played there before, but it has been a while. And I’m looking forward to coming back to Eastern Kentucky. We always have a good turnout, and it’s a good place to come back to with the bluegrass music we play.”
Skaggs said that he intends to perform some of the older songs people have loved for years and of course his hits (of which there is an extensive list), but also newer songs that audiences might not have had a chance to hear live.
“A lot of the younger kids that are going to the university there might be more familiar with the bluegrass we have been playing the last ten years or so,” Skaggs said. “They may not remember ‘Highway 40 Blues’ and ‘Uncle Pen’, and things like that as much but I may be fooled,” he admitted.
And the veteran performer could be surprised, because one thing that is consistent throughout generations is that if an audience likes what they hear then they want to hear everything that performer has ever done. In Skaggs case, especially, there is a lot of material to draw from because he has not only become a legend but has also played music with legends.
“I guess the first Grand Ole Opry star I got to play with when I was six years old was Bill Monroe in Martha, Kentucky in Lawrence County,” Skaggs said. “I just kind of went there to see him,” Skaggs continued, admitting that he didn’t even know what Monroe looked like because he had only heard the bluegrass legend on the radio.
A year later, Skaggs’ father moved the family to a small town not far from Nashville, Tennessee, and he met Earl Scruggs backstage one night at the Grand Ole Opry, Scruggs was taken by Skaggs’ mandolin playing, and invited him to try out for his television show. Skaggs said he went to the audition with his father, and was invited to be on the show. Skaggs said he wasn’t able to watch that episode for quite some time after it was aired, and when he did see it he was ‘taken with it’ as his young mind tried to process it all.
Sometime later, the family moved back to Eastern Kentucky and Skaggs met another local musician, Keith Whitley, in a little town called Ezel, Kentucky. The town was having a fall carnival, and Skaggs and his father had gone there to play music.
“I was there playing fiddle and mandolin, and Keith was there with his brother, and we just started talking and visiting. He was my age,” Skaggs said. “And we had a lot in common. We started talking about the music we loved, and both of us loved the Stanley Brothers.”
Skaggs said that that Whitley and his brother Dwight came over the next weekend, and they and Skaggs’ father started playing music.
“Almost every weekend after that we would all be together somewhere playing music,” he said.
“One night we went to see Ralph Stanley,” Skaggs remembered. But Stanley’s bus broke down with a flat tire, delaying the headliner and forcing the owner of the venue to deal with an impatient crowd.
“My dad always stuffed our instruments in the car in case someone asked us to play,” Skaggs said.
“The owner, it was in Fort Gay, West Virginia across from Louisa, knew we could play somehow,” he said, remembering being surprised when he walked up to the table. Skaggs said he and his father jumped at the opportunity, and as luck would have it they were playing a Ralph Stanley song when Stanley himself finally arrived.
The rest, of course, is a matter of bluegrass history, but those are just a few of the stories of his career that Skaggs shares with his fans wherever he goes. The concert on June 20 promises to not only be a night of wonderful music from a master entertainer who has quite literally grown up in bluegrass, but also a night that gives fans the opportunity to hear firsthand how Skaggs went from walking with musical legends to becoming one in his own right.
Tickets to the summer concert at KCU are available now at http://www.kcu.edu/concerts
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
