by Ricky Skaggs
It was the kind of entertainment that had been around for many years and went back to the days before radio, when vaudeville and medicine shows traveled the back roads. We sang a good share of old-fashioned toe-tappers, mountain ballads, and sentimental songs. One pretty number was called “River of Memory.” Onstage, we were from the tradition of the Carter Family and so many other family groups that came before and after us, in that we didn’t put on any airs or try to be something that we weren’t. Like it says in the biography of the Carters, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?: “They didn’t play hillbillies or hayseeds or cowpokes. They were just regular folks making their own music.” That was us, all right.
I usually took a break on my mandolin in the middle of a song—nothing fancy, just little turnarounds I’d heard on records—and the folks really loved to see the little boy play. But it was mostly the family singing that carried the show, and most of the crowd favorites were gospel tunes like those we’d sing at the Free Will Baptist Church. We got a lot of our songs from the Baptist hymnals, especially the old Stamps-Baxter hymnbooks that people knew so well. These were little paperbacks published in a town called Lookout, Kentucky, and they were popular in the mountains. They printed the words, not the music, because most people couldn’t read music.
There was one beautiful hymn, “Jesus Spoke to Me One Day,” that my mom and me used to sing as a duet. It was an old call-and-response hymn, and it was always one we could sing to get the audience involved. I’ll never forget the time when that hymn got hold of a woman out in the crowd, and she got to shouting!
It was at the big Fourth of July shindig in Louisa, not too long after we first started playing in public as the Skaggs Family band. This was a huge celebration every year, and all kinds of local homegrown performers like us would show up to help celebrate Independence Day. It was held outside on the grounds of the Lawrence County courthouse. They had lots of music, hamburgers, hot dogs, cotton candy, caramel apples, and custard. It was the biggest event all year, and you’d have folks from miles around come to Louisa to get in on the celebration. There was an old band-shell amphitheater, built back in the Civil War days. It was poured concrete with a curved roof, and you could stand in this round shell and talk to a thousand people without a microphone. It had perfect acoustics, and the music sounded great when you played inside. On the afternoon of the big bash, we were in the amphitheater, just us three, performing our little family-music program. It was the largest crowd we’d ever entertained, and I was getting a real thrill hearing our voices bounce off that band shell into the open air. After a few songs, people started coming up and throwing money at my feet. They’d run up and toss a nickel or a quarter or a silver dollar or whatever change they had. I got so much money in my pockets that my pants came down that day, and it embarrassed me to death. But I was awfully happy to see that people liked the music we were playing. After I got my britches hitched back up, me and Mom started singing “Jesus Spoke to Me.” I was chiming my response parts with my squeaky tenor. There was an old woman out in the crowd, and she stood up and threw her arms up in the air and started shouting hallelujah, as if she were in church. This hymn was really touching her heart, and she was praising the Lord out there in public in front of the drunks and the street people and whoever happened to be passing by. It was just her and Jesus. That was the first time I’d ever seen anyone shout like that outside of church.
I look back at that now, and I think that God was using my music—these old-time hymns I was singing with Mom—to reach out and touch the audience long before I knew there was an audience to be touched. I was just a kid singing with my mom, but our music could carry the message of the Gospel out into the public square. Sometimes a song can take people to a place where a preacher can’t. I believe Jesus really was speaking to that old woman on that Fourth of July so long ago, and we were somehow being used to help her hear His voice crying out across a crowded park in downtown Louisa.
At the time, though, the shiny coins those people threw at me made a bigger impression. And there was more of that coming. I started entering a lot of talent contests on my own about this time. There was a contest over in West Virginia where I won fifty silver dollars. I felt like I’d won the lottery.
There’s an old photo of me sitting on the floor in the living room with all those silver dollars stacked up on the coffee table. It’s one of those family pictures where everybody’s pulling a goof. I’ve got my mandolin, and I’m wearing a cowboy hat cocked sideways. Dad’s got his guitar, and his hair is pulled way down on his forehead like Moe from the Three Stooges. Mom is sitting behind us, and she’s holding a banjo and making a funny face. She loved banjo, but she couldn’t play a lick! It still makes me laugh when I think of that photo. There was another competition at the Pan Theater in Portsmouth, Ohio, where the Skaggs Family band played sometimes. The top prize was a brand-new red Marvel transistor radio, and I beat out a lot of kids to win one and was thrilled. This was when transistors were as cutting-edge and high-tech as an iPod is nowadays. It was an incredible thing to have at that age, especially during that era of American music. Here I was, a kid from the mountains who lived up a dirt road back in the woods, five miles from the main highway, and now I could hear the sounds of every kind of music being made, from places I couldn’t even find on a map.
For my seventh birthday, I got my first Gibson mandolin, an A-40 model. It was the first good mandolin I ever had, one that was professional quality. I’d never have dreamed that one day that little Gibson would end up in the Country Music Hall of Fame. It almost didn’t survive past my tenth birthday.
The Skaggs Family band kept mighty busy, and not just with talent shows. We worked a little radio station in Ashland, Kentucky, called WTCR, where they’d set me up on a box in the studio so I could reach the great big microphone. One time we were guests on a big package show headlined by Roy Acuff over in Huntington, West Virginia. There we were, the Skaggs Family band playing with the likes of Kitty Wells and Johnnie & Jack. It was somethin’ else.
But the best was when we went to Nashville for a guest spot on the Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree. We had traveled down from Kentucky to go to the Grand Ole Opry for the Saturday night show. My dad figured that we’d find a place to play somewhere, so we had the car packed with instruments. Elmer came with us, as did Euless, who played his fiddle to help the long drive go by.
Then we pulled up to the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. I remember my first time at the Ryman like it was yesterday. We bought our tickets and went in and sat down in the old wooden-pew seats. I can still see the rainbow colors of the stage clothes that all the performers wore—the bright blues and yellows and purples and greens—it was so amazing.
In those days, it was important for stars to look like stars, and the theatrical presentation and the fancy costumes were a big part of it. When hardworking people went to the Opry and paid their money to see the show, they wanted a show. Even if you were sitting forty or fifty rows from the stage, you could still get a good look at one of those sparkling rhinestone Nudie suits, the flashy, eye-popping outfits designed by tailor Nudie Cohn, whose country music clients ran the gamut from Gene Autry to Gram Parsons.
Porter Wagoner had an incredible blue Nudie suit with sparkling rhinestone wagon wheels and cactus on it. Here were all the voices I knew from the radio, right in front of us. Shining like true stars. There was Hank Snow, the Singing Ranger; ol’ Ernest Tubb; Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs; Webb Pierce; Patsy Cline; Kitty Wells; Jean Shepard; and Hawkshaw Hawkins.
At the time, Jean was married to Hawk, and that night they were scheduled to host the Midnite Jamboree show at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, down the street from the Ryman. At the end of the Opry show, Hawkshaw invited everyone to come by the Jamboree. Well, that was the invitation Dad was waiting for. We walked down Lower Broadway to the record shop. It was packed elbow-to-elbow, and somehow Dad worked his way through the crowd and made his way back to see Hawk.
Ne
xt thing I knew, Dad was telling us to get ready and grab our instruments from the car; sure enough, Hawkshaw and Jean were going to give us a spot to play a few songs that night.
It was a truly kind gesture, and it turned out great. There was only one hitch. Euless didn’t show up to the gig, so we didn’t have a fiddler. We found out later he got a case of stage fright and drank too much and missed out on our big moment. But Elmer was there with us on banjo, and I got to do a mandolin solo. The legendary Opry announcer Grant Turner was beside us, rooting us on and exhorting the crowd. It wasn’t the Opry, but it was pretty darn close.
I’m so glad my cousin Barbara Sue Skaggs was with us that night. She took a picture of that appearance, and you can see all four feet of me at the microphone.
That was early 1961. Two years later, on March 5, 1963, Hawkshaw was killed in the same plane crash that took the lives of Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and his son-in-law Randy Hughes. It was a very sad time in Nashville, especially for Jean. In the years since, I’ve thanked Miss Jean Shepard many times for letting us play as guests on the Midnite Jamboree. It meant so much to our family.
Mostly, though, the Skaggs Family was a local act. We used to work a lot of churches, pie suppers, theaters, and schools, in towns all over eastern Kentucky. We played from Prestonsburg to Paintsville, near Butcher Hollow, where Loretta Lynn’s from. Every now and then, we’d get a paying gig. But we didn’t make any real money. It was just a hobby, and good practice for me.
The Skaggs Family band also gave my mom a chance to step out and sing her own songs. She had a bunch of things she’d written around the house. One was called “All I Ever Loved Was You,” a song that Ralph Stanley later recorded. Mom didn’t play an instrument, but she’d write out what she could and Dad would help her work out the melody on his guitar. She wrote a lot of love songs when Dad was away working and she was missing him. He’d be on her mind, and she’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking of lyrics. She’d jump out of bed and jot down the words before she’d forget. She said the songs would just come to her.
I was thinking about my mom the other day when I was listening to “Mother’s Only Sleeping” by Bill Monroe, one of his most popular records. It was one of her favorites. Not having my mother now makes me realize how this song touches people when they hear it. Mama was such a powerful influence: Her singing and songwriting inspired me, her words encouraged me, and her prayers always kept me safe.
The songwriting gift my mom had, I didn’t get. I haven’t been blessed that way, not so far, anyhow. I keep believing that one day I’m gonna get real inspired to write songs. I don’t think you can force it; at least I can’t. It may never happen for me, but I’m hoping it will.
Music is a calling, and I mean that literally, too. I remember I’d be out goofing around in the woods, and Mom would stand on the front step of our house and holler, “Lester and Earl’s on!” Her voice could travel a mile, and no matter where I was, I heard her loud and clear. The Flatt & Scruggs TV show was sponsored by Martha White flour. It was syndicated on television stations all over the South. The show brought Lester and Earl and their red-hot band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, into the living rooms of millions, and it had helped make Flatt & Scruggs the most popular bluegrass act in the country. I’d take off as hard as I could run, on back to the house. The music had a pull on me like nothing else, not even the call of the woods.
At the time, I didn’t know what “child prodigy” meant, and nobody ever said it. Prodigy was not a word we threw around in Kentucky back then. People would just smile and say, “That boy’s got a lot of talent. God’s given him a gift.” And those words stuck with me. You’d be surprised how much a child is influenced by words. My mom always reminded me that the Lord had given me my gifts, but she didn’t make me feel like I had to pay Him back by only playing gospel. As if I could ever pay back the Lord’s kindness to me.
My mother said those words to me to remind me that my talent didn’t come out of nowhere; it came from the Creator. Her words were full of joy and blessing, and they poured into me. I knew I had to use the gift the best I could and not let it go to waste.
See, Dad gave me the mandolin and love for music, but my mom gave me a faith. Through her example I learned the importance of praying and trusting in God. Without those pillars, the gift of music, though wonderful, would not be enough to uplift my spirit and satisfy my heart. Mom taught me only Jesus can have that place. I always remembered what my mother taught, even when I wasn’t all the way living up to it. Mama was doing what she always did: preparing me for the road I’m on now, the road I’ve been traveling for most of my life.
Chapter 4
CHASING A DREAM
Like a sinner’s penance, the Ryman was austere, its wooden benches harsh, its roof offering no respite from the sapping summer heat. It was the weekend home of the Grand Ole Opry, a country radio show regarded as a sacred monument. . . . The Opry was revered by all who loved country music for its authority and grandeur.
—Are You Ready for the Country, by Peter Doggett
A night at the Opry is a concoction of color, confusion, country culture, and corn. To observe the show is to see a spectacle rooted in the American grain. . . . “New York advertising people just don’t believe it when they see it,” said Ott Devine, general manager of the Opry, in an interview in Nashville in 1961. “They just don’t understand the informality.”
—The Country Music Story, by Robert Shelton
In 1962, Dad took a job at the Tennessee Valley Authority plant near Paradise, in the southwestern part of Kentucky. It was at the atomic energy plant, and they needed skilled welders. This was no ordinary job for hire, done in a few weeks and on to the next. It was full-time employment, so the whole family was moving with him. But the TVA welding job wasn’t the only reason he uprooted the family to leave the hollow. It was mostly on account of me and my mandolin.
Paradise was only a few hours’ drive from Nashville. And Nashville was home to the Grand Ole Opry, where all the country stars played. Dad moved us close to Nashville so I could have a decent shot at the country-music business, and so we could give it a go with the Skaggs Family band, too. His greatest dream was to get me on the Opry. The only way to get on the Opry, he figured, was to be in Nashville.
So we moved to Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a suburb north of town. It was a big change for us. It was probably hardest on my oldest brother, Garold, because he loved hunting and fishing and running the woods so much. The rest of us were excited. And we wouldn’t be leaving everyone behind at Brushy Creek. My dad’s cousin Glair Mullins got hired at the TVA plant, too, and he and his wife also moved to Goodlettsville, living two doors down from us in our new neighborhood.
It was a brand-new subdivision: tidy little three-bedroom houses all lined up and straight driveways down to the paved street, complete with a street sign for Fannin Drive. Roads back home curved like a copperhead, and most were simple dirt paths cut into the land. We were a long way from Brushy.
I still had a lot of Kentucky in me, though, and it didn’t take much for me to put it on full display. One of the first things that happened after we moved in was me getting in a fistfight with a boy in the neighborhood. We’d barely even met, and I busted his nose.
The stupid fight was over a mulberry tree, if you can believe it. We got into a crazy argument over this tree that grew along our street. I don’t remember how it even started, just him saying, “It’s my tree!” and me saying, “No, it ain’t!” Something in me snapped, and I reared back and popped him right in the nose. It was a hard punch, too, and I knew his nose was broken. I still don’t know what triggered it. I guess this boy had pushed me to the limit.
When I saw his nose spewing out blood, I was as surprised as he was. I immediately felt terrible and ashamed of what I’d done. I started to tell him how sorry I was and tried to hug him, but I just got his blood all over me, too. Now we were both a bloody mess standing there under the mulberry tree.
After that I never got into another fight. One was enough. Now, I did learn to spit and whistle and do all the other things boys my age did back then. I was a regular kid except when it came time for sports, and that’s when I wished I didn’t play music so much.
Dad didn’t let me try out for any team sports, because he thought I’d hurt my mandolin hands. He never wanted me playing baseball, because he was afraid I’d get a bad hop on a ground ball or get nailed by a line drive and mash my fingers. Same with basketball and football.
Garold was on the Little League baseball team they had in Goodlettsville. We didn’t have organized sports or anything like that in Kentucky, which of course made the idea seem even cooler to me. I mean, Garold had a uniform, so by gosh, I wanted to have me a uniform and play on the team, too! Well, Dad wasn’t gonna let that happen.
I was really upset. I wanted to be in on the fun the other kids were having. He said music was too important to let a freak accident on a ball field ruin my chances. He wouldn’t budge. My mom talked him into letting me be the batboy. It gave me a role to play and I got to have a uniform, so I was happy. Before you get to feeling too sorry for me, I can tell you now that Dad was absolutely right on this point. Looking back on it, I’m glad he didn’t let me get involved with team sports, because I believe I’d probably have lost my focus on music if I played, and it would have cost me in the long run. I could have ended up being okay as an athlete and being good as musician—but not being great at anything.
