Kentucky Traveler

by Ricky Skaggs

  I’d practice a lot around the house, and it used to drive Mom crazy. “Honey,” she’d say, in her sweetest-sounding voice, “why don’t you go over yonder on the bridge and sit down and play there? And I can get supper ready and watch you from here. Okay?” This was her way of saying “Get that thing out of this house!” without destroying my confidence.

  I’d take my fiddle out in the woods and find an old stump or bed of moss where I could sit and play. It was so peaceful under the trees, with the wind blowing through the branches. Out there I had my own secret place where nobody cared how many mistakes I made. It was the perfect place to learn.

  Alone or not, learning fiddle was hard work. Now I realize how smart Dad was to start me out on the mandolin. If he’d bought me a fiddle first, I would have screeched on it so bad I’d probably have given up on music for good.

  Dad wasn’t bothered a bit by my fumbling on the fiddle. He was fired up that I’d taken to another instrument. He grabbed his guitar, and we started playing together. I was old enough to know it’d take a lot longer to get decent on fiddle, and I didn’t get discouraged. I was too busy studying and learning new songs. I soon found out that I could play a lot of tunes on fiddle that I couldn’t play very well on the mandolin, like “Orange Blossom Special,” “Grey Eagle,” and “Cumberland Gap.”

  I started to understand the science of the fiddle and how it fits into the music. I learned how it fits with the singing, how it handles backup and works in a breakdown. I was connecting with it, but it just took a little longer to make the connection than it did with the mandolin. So many things in life happen for a reason, at least I believe they do, and I call it God’s providence. I’ve been really blessed in this regard, meeting people at certain times or, in this case, meeting a new instrument at just the right time. The fiddle came into my life when I was a shy teenager and needed a new buddy I could pal around with, one who could protect me in a new environment, because our family was on the move again, this time up north to Ohio. It wasn’t for long, but it sure was a big change for me. We were going from the hollow to the city of Columbus.

  Grandpa and Grandma Thompson were still living up there, and they were getting up in years, especially Grandpa, who had some health problems, so my mom thought it’d be good to spend time with them. Grandpa Walter was a night watchman at Darby Dan Farm, where they raised thoroughbred racehorses. We moved up to be with them in West Jefferson, a suburb of Columbus.

  I arrived in Ohio fresh out of the mountains with my fiddle and my accent. At first, it wasn’t easy. I felt awkward and out of place, especially when the teacher called on me in class. My English teacher would cringe whenever she heard me talk. Not because of what I said, but because of the way I said it. Of course, I thought I was talking just fine!

  I told my mom that the teacher didn’t like how I sounded when I talked. Mom didn’t downplay it, but she didn’t blow it up, either. She took the humble road. She didn’t get mad at the teacher or call the school to complain. I was kinda disappointed, to be honest, because I thought the teacher had done wrong. “Honey,” Mom said, “don’t you ever be ashamed of how you talk or where you come from. You just stand up there, and you be proud to be a hillbilly.”

  But support and encouragement at home can only take you so far. At that age, it’s what the other kids think that really matters. It’s one thing to be told to be proud and another to have something to be proud of. Well, I found I did have something to be proud of. My fiddle!

  I’d take it to school and play at lunch break and at recess. I’d keep it in my locker during class. My nickname in school became “Hillbilly.” I was okay with it because they were okay with it—and that’s what I was, a hillbilly in the city.

  I got help early on from some buddies who sort of took care of me when I was the new kid in town. Ron Sloan and his brothers were first-generation Buckeyes, but their folks were from Kentucky. They loved bluegrass and the old country I played, but they loved loud rock and roll and the party life, too.

  The Sloans took a liking to me, and nobody messed with the Sloans at school. They protected me—a few words from Ron was all it took. “Don’t mess with Hillbilly,” he’d say. “Now, you’ll have to go through me to mess with Hill—he’s my buddy.”

  After school, the Sloan boys would come over to my house. We’d play basketball and goof around for a bit, but after a while they’d get bored. It was music that they really came over for. They’d say, “Hey, Hill, is your dad home? Why don’t y’all play a little for us?”

  Dad would come outside on the front stoop with his guitar and I’d get my fiddle and we’d play for them. These kids didn’t necessarily understand what we were playing, but they liked what they heard. Sometimes one of the boys would grab a guitar and try to play along. It meant even more to get support out in public. Whenever there was any kind of local event, like an ox roast, carnival, or fair, sure enough, Dad and I were the musical entertainment. We’d be playing on stage, and the Sloan boys would come by and point me out to their friends. “Hey, Hillbilly!” they’d holler. I swelled with pride.

  Things like that made me feel like I was different, but different in a good way. I had something I was good at, and people liked it. Music never let me down.

  Up in Ohio, I was around a lot more rock music than in Kentucky. The West Jeff kids liked rock and soul, especially the harder stuff.

  Jimi Hendrix had come out with his blazing cover of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” I loved the sound of it. I told my friend from up the street, Danny McCraig, that I could learn how to play it. Danny bet me five dollars I couldn’t. Well, now I’d got myself in a bind. This was bigger than the five dollars: My reputation was on the line. I went down to the record store and bought the single. I listened to it and practiced, and I finally figured out the intro and the chords on Dad’s D-28 Martin guitar. He let me take it to school, and I showed Danny and the other kids I could play it. My fingers hurt for a week from bending those strings, but I got my money.

  Rock and roll was cool, but it couldn’t hold up to hearing a band like Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys in person at the Astro Inn on High Street in downtown Columbus. I remember the first time I saw Earl Taylor playing there, and my God, was it great. It was this really high, lonesome, screaming bluegrass music right in your face. Earl on mandolin and Jim McCall on guitar and singing lead, just blowing it out, big ol’ jugular veins jutting out of their necks.

  Some teenagers went to the Monterey Pop Festival. Well, I spent the Summer of Love with Dad at the Astro Inn. You hear about “clubs” and “venues” nowadays. They were called “beer joints” back then, and the Astro Inn was definitely a beer joint. Forget “Purple Haze” and free love, the Astro was all about dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music. At the Astro, the only décor I can recall was gray wallpaper that had the look of prison cinderblock. The Astro Inn was one of those places where if you went through the front door and didn’t have a knife in your pocket, they’d give you one. Not really, but it was sure a rough spot.

  Dad didn’t bring a knife, just a fourteen-year-old boy. That may seem a little bit reckless, but remember this was Hobert Skaggs, and he could always find the good in any situation. He said, “Son, don’t pay attention to nothing ’cept the music.” He told me there were plenty of good things happening on stage and no reason to fool with whatever was happening in the crowd. The good outweighed the bad, you know, and I was so focused on music that I was able to do what Dad told me. I just ignored the fistfights and craziness all around us. It was just background noise to me. I was too busy studying Earl Taylor on his mandolin and watching how the Stoney Mountain Boys worked their one-mic setup without knocking each other down on the tiny stage.

  It made a difference that Dad was as innocent as I was in a lot of ways. He didn’t drink, didn’t curse, didn’t carouse or tomcat around. We’d just sit there at our table with a couple of sodas and enjoy the music. We didn’t bother with the patrons, and the
y didn’t bother with us. Looking back, I’m so glad my dad walked the line. If Dad had been in there drinking and getting rowdy, it would have changed my whole future. It would have injured my innocence at a time when I wasn’t quite ready. We were there for bluegrass and nothing else.

  I don’t want to give too bad an impression of the Astro Inn. It was rough, maybe, but it was real. It was what it was. It was a place in the city for all the homesick mountain people to hear bluegrass and the music from back home. They’d come here the same way we did, 175 miles north up Route 23, the one they call Hillbilly Highway, and out of every carload you could find a bluegrass picker. A lot of ’em told themselves and their families that the move to Ohio was only for a while, that the next year they’d be back home in Kentucky. Then years would go by, and they never did make it back for good. I counted us the lucky ones. For us, it really was just for a few years.

  Sometimes we’d see our cousin Euless Wright at the Astro Inn, and sometimes he’d come by our place in West Jefferson. We didn’t see much of Euless after we folded the Skaggs Family band, but when we were living in Columbus he started coming around again. Euless was an incredible natural-born musician. He had a ton of raw talent, and he soaked up any sound he liked. He played bluegrass, country, old-time, and jazz, too. Euless could do it all and make it look so easy. He was tall and skinny, with long arms and long fingers. When he’d stand up to play, he’d rest the fiddle down on his body—not under his neck like some do—put it against his upper torso, and play it that-a-way.

  I learned classic tunes from Euless that every fiddler needs to know, like “Billy in the Low Ground,” “Florida Blues,” and “Whitesburg.” He knew old-time Kentucky traditional songs like “Blackberry Blossom,” and he did a version of “Grey Eagle” that was great. He always added his own personal touch, but he never abandoned the melody. One of his heroes was Georgia Slim, a well-known fiddler from Tifton, Georgia. Like him, Euless was very smooth and very constructed in his bowing. It was Euless who really got me excited about playing the fiddle.

  Euless was generous with his time and everything else. What was his was yours. He had an old wind-up record player and a bunch of bluegrass records, lots of Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs, those red-label Columbia records from the late 1940s and early 1950s, beat-up old 78s like “Raw Hide” and “Flint Hill Special.” He let me borrow the whole stash. I’d turn the knob from 78 to 45 rpm, slowing the record down so I could hear how a solo was put together and practice at my own pace. I’d spend the afternoon studying Benny Martin’s fiddle breaks on “Dear Old Dixie,” and I wouldn’t quit till I’d figured out how he played it.

  I wish Euless had been as good to himself as he was to me. About all he ever really did in life was play the fiddle and drink. He was a great fiddler, but he had a bad drinking problem. To put it plain, he was an alcoholic. I saw how it slowly destroyed his life and finally ruined him as a musician. He was as good as a professional, and he could have gone pro if he’d wanted it bad enough. But he didn’t have the drive it takes, because the drinking took the drive away.

  The fiddler Buddy Spicher lived for a while with Euless and my aunt Estie. Buddy really liked Euless’s fiddling, too. Buddy did a lot of session work in Nashville and played fiddle for some of the all-time greats, from Hank Snow to Bob Dylan. Euless could have been right there in the thick of it, cutting records with the legends. By rights, Euless should have been one of the best fiddlers Bill Monroe ever had, but he couldn’t quit drinking. It just dogged him. He probably lost his chance to be part of Bill’s band after Monroe had to come to Ashland and bail Euless out of jail. With Monroe, one time was all you got when it came to something like that.

  Alcoholism sort of runs in my family, on both sides, a long ways back. That’s one of the reasons my mom didn’t keep any alcohol in the house and didn’t allow anyone to bring it in, either. Not even Euless. “Now don’t you be bringing that stuff in my house!” she’d say. “You know I love you, boy, but uh-uh.” Euless would just leave his whiskey in the car and go outside to take him a nip. Sometimes he’d even be straight when he came by the house. Didn’t matter if he was drinkin’ or not, though—when it came to fiddling, he was smooth as could be, and we’d pick for hours and hours. A lot of times, I’d just sit there and listen to Euless play.

  Euless had a great heart till he had too much to drink. I believe things could’ve turned out different if he’d had somebody early on to give him the kind of encouragement I got from my parents. If he could have learned to lean on Jesus and found acceptance in Him, Euless would never have had to lean on the bottle. It makes me think about this great ol’ hymn:

  My hope is built on nothing less

  Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

  I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

  But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

  On Christ the solid rock I stand.

  All other ground is sinking sand.

  The first time I met Keith Richards, we were working on the George Jones tribute The Bradley Barn Sessions. Marty Stuart and I had gotten to the studio early in the morning, and we were talking about heaven. I don’t know how we got to talking about it, but we were. Keith came in the room, and he’d been drinking vodka since the sun came up. He was so nervous about having to sing with George, one of his idols, that he was bombed. Here’s the coolest guy in the world, who plays guitar in the coolest, most famous rock and roll band on the planet. And here he was in this tiny studio in Nashville at 9 a.m. trying to find his nerve.

  Well, Keith walked in swigging his vodka. He looked pretty rough. Kinda reminded me of what Waylon Jennings once said: “If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have took better care of myself.” Now, Keith’s a great guy; he’s friendly and funny as heck, too. Marty and me were talking about the afterlife, and I was telling him that I don’t fear death because I know that my last breath on this earth will be my first breath in heaven.

  Well, Keith heard me, and he couldn’t help chiming in. “When I die,” he said, “if I ever get into heaven, God’s gonna be really angry with me, ’cause I’ve been a really bad boy.” Then he took another swig and said, “When I see God, He’s going to give me a big spanking!”

  “Do you really think so, Keith?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m dead serious.”

  “Keith,” I told him, “God has a whole lot more mercy for you than you think He does.”

  Now here’s the deal: If Keith has been able to survive living the way he has, it’s been by the grace of God. But a lot of musicians who’ve tried to imitate his lifestyle, they didn’t survive. It don’t matter if it’s rock and roll or country, some people believe you have to be like Hank Williams or Keith Richards to make it. I can tell you that’s a lie from the pits of hell. That’s what Satan wants you to believe! He says that you’ll never be good enough or creative if you don’t live dangerous or get wasted. That’s the biggest lie ever told.

  I hate to say it, but my poor cousin Euless was pretty much drunk all the time. I guess you could say he wasted his life, throwing all that talent away. When I think about how much I learned from him, though, I know it wasn’t a total waste. What Euless threw away, I’ve tried to pick up. I have his fiddle and play a lot of his tunes. I loved him, and I think about him a lot.

  Chapter 7

  THE LONESOME MOUNTAIN BOYS

  We sang together constantly, night and day. Our voices just had a natural blend. People who heard us often thought we were brothers. And the fact is, I ended up being closer to Ricky than I was to my own brothers.

  —Keith Whitley, “Country at the Core,” Country Music magazine, 1984.

  In early ’69, we moved back to Kentucky. Part of the reason we left Ohio was financial, to ease the burden of making payments on two houses. But the biggest reason was that Dad didn’t like living in the city. He was a mountain guy, just a farm boy all growed up, and he wanted to get back to his fruit trees and his ginseng and his squirrel hunting. He was too se
t in his ways and the life he knew back home, and he couldn’t adapt to being cooped up in a subdivision in West Jefferson, Ohio.

  Thing was, he’d only agreed to move up north for my mom, so that she could be close to her folks at a time when her dad was ailing. But Grandpa Walter was doing better health-wise, so Mom felt it would be okay to go back to Brushy. She knew Dad was restless and uneasy up there in Ohio, with all the concrete and the commotion. She knew how much he missed all the things that go with having your own farm, like raising a hog every year and harvesting the garden. The mountains always drew Dad back home, and us right along with him.

  Like always, I was glad to be back at Brushy Creek. Every time we came back to the old home place, I appreciated it more. It was peaceful, it was lovely, and it was a place that never seemed to change. I thought maybe the post office in Cordell would fall in the creek while we were in Ohio, but it didn’t. You could always count on things being pretty much the same back home.

  The only thing I didn’t look forward to was school. I enrolled at Louisa High School for my junior year, taking the bus there, but I never really liked much about it. The 4-H club was all right, I guess. Truth was, I was more interested in fiddling than reading, writing, or ’rithmetic. And as far as that went, my real education was just beginning.

  Euless gave me a real solid foundation, but that was just the start of my apprenticeship. Dad started introducing me to old fiddlers in our area, so I got sit at the feet of the old masters. I was cutting my teeth with the best around these parts. Some were up in their seventies and eighties, and the music they played was old-time mountain music. It wasn’t just old, it was ancient.