Kentucky Traveler

by Ricky Skaggs

  A thing that especially pleased country folk was that the Carters were a family.

  —Tom T. Hall, quoted in Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music, by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg

  One cold Saturday morning, when I was five years old, I woke up to a mandolin on my bed. It was the best surprise I ever got, before or since.

  Dad had made good on the promise he’d made to himself. I think he had been holding out until the right time, when I was big enough to hold an instrument properly. If I had gotten the mandolin too soon, I might have gotten frustrated. The timing had to be just so, and my dad figured out when the right time was. I guess it’s one of those things dads know.

  Dad was a really good welder. Things were pretty tough in eastern Kentucky at that time, but we had more than most, because Dad could always find work.

  But construction welding jobs were usually a good long ways from Lawrence County, so my dad had to travel. Some were up in Ashland, Kentucky, where they had the big Armco steel factory. Some were further north, in Louisville, Cincinnati, or Columbus. Dad had a good work record and was in demand. Foremen with job assignments from all over the area would call the local union and ask for Hobert Skaggs, because they knew he’d get the job done right. When Dad got word of a job, he’d be gone in a few hours and stay at the work site all week. He’d come home on Friday nights and spend Saturdays with us. Then he’d get up at three or four o’clock on Sunday mornings and make the long drive back to his job site. It could be a ten-hour drive on crooked two-lane roads just to get back to wherever he was working. It was a tough commute, before there were interstates. But that long journey was worth it to him just to be with Mom and us kids for a day or two. It was a good thing Dad had Glair Mullins to travel with and help make the miles go by. Glair was a piper-fitter and welder, too, and he and dad loved to work together. Glair was my dad’s first cousin, and they were like brothers.

  Anyhow, during the winter of ’59, Dad was at a welding job in Lima, Ohio. There he found a little secondhand mandolin in a pawn shop. I think he paid five dollars for it. He came in from work real early on Saturday morning and put the mandolin in the bed next to me while I was sleeping.

  I woke up the next morning, and there was the little mandolin, just my size. I put my hands around the neck, my first feel of wood and steel together. I’ve never forgotten that feeling. In a way, it was almost spiritual. It’s like I connected to it immediately. Dad showed me three basic chords—G, C, and D. That was about all he knew on mandolin. Then he stepped aside and just let me go to it, and I took to it right from the start. When I first heard the sound I could make, my heart leapt inside me. Once I held that mandolin in my hands, nothing was ever the same.

  That Sunday, Dad went back to his job in Lima, where he got snowed in and couldn’t come home for two weeks. When he finally made it back to Kentucky, I was playing and singing and changing the chords in the right place, all at the same time. I’d worked hard on that mandolin for those two weeks, and it showed. When Dad saw me playing and singing, he was blown away. He got so excited he went out and bought himself a new guitar, a 1959 Martin D-28. Drove all the way to a music store in Ashland to get it. Now my dad had a reason to play music again, and that’s what we did. I sang tenor to his lead and played mandolin with his guitar, just as he’d done with his brother Okel. For my dad, this was a dream come true.

  I’ll tell you what—I fell in love with that little mandolin. It pulled me away from my toys. I kept it with me all the time. I didn’t have an instrument case and didn’t need one. I just laid the mandolin on the floor or the bed when I wasn’t playing, and that wasn’t too often. I had plenty of time to practice. There wasn’t much television in those days, and I made up my own entertainment with my mandolin. I was happy to play and sing for anybody who was willing to listen.

  I had a gift, but it was my dad who nurtured it so it could grow. He saw something in me that I didn’t see myself. I’m so thankful to God that he was my dad. A good father is someone who sees potential in his children. He pays attention to what they like and what they excel at. I had a father who was also a musician, and he knew he had a son who was a natural-born musician with raw talent. Raw talent needs a guiding hand, and that’s what my dad gave me. He was a patient man, and he was willing to spend the time with me. He never had to force me to practice. I loved my dad, and I loved to do things with him. So he made me want to practice, because practicing meant we could play music together.

  Dad’s love for country music was infectious, and I caught it real bad. He was a huge fan of Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman; he loved his yodeling and those hot, bluesy runs on the guitar. He loved Roy Acuff and Floyd Tillman and Clyde Moody—all these great voices from the past. And I came to love them all, too. He’d sit around the porch in the evening playing their songs.

  But Red Foley was probably his favorite. You don’t hear much about Red Foley nowadays, maybe because he didn’t sing many cheating and drinking songs. Back in the ’40s, he was a country superstar, with hit records like “Old Shep,” “Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy” and “Peace in the Valley.” He was a fellow Kentucky boy, from a place called Blue Lick near Berea, and Lord, did he have a beautiful storyteller’s voice!

  Then there were all the brother acts Dad and my uncle Okel loved—Alton and Rabon Delmore, Ira and Charlie Louvin, Bill and Charlie Monroe.

  Last but not least, by any means, there were the Stanley Brothers. Carter and Ralph were from the mountains of Virginia, not too far from where we lived. The Stanleys were special. They had a high, lonesome sound that went through me like a March wind, especially their early recordings with Pee Wee Lambert. Their singing just grabbed me by the throat. Their song “The Lonesome River” had a chorus that made me cry. I guess it was the harmony that touched me. It was so different, and oh so good.

  Dad had a collection of old 78-rpm records that predated bluegrass, rockabilly, and Elvis Presley. Not just Jimmie Rodgers and Roy Acuff, but Uncle Dave Macon and Sam and Kirk McGee and all kinds of wild string bands that blew my mind. I’m so glad those records gave me such a solid foundation. It is an easy jump from that early hillbilly music to bluegrass or gospel or country, or even to traditional Irish music like the Chieftains. My Daddy’s old records were a springboard for me, and those influences are what inspire me and keep music fun, more now than ever.

  For Dad, music was a joy. He’d lay us kids on the floor after dinner and sing to us. We loved hearing him sing one called “I Had But Fifty Cents.” It went back to the Civil War and the minstrel-show days, and the words were so funny. We’d hound him, “C’mon, Dad, do that fifty-cent song!” It’s about a guy who takes his girl out on a date to a restaurant, and though she says she isn’t very hungry, she eats a whole big bunch of food. I can still hear my dad sing: “A dozen raw, a plate of slaw, a chicken and a roast, parsnips and some apple sauce, with soft-shell crabs on toast, an oyster stew, some crackers too, her appetite was immense. When she called for pie, I thought I’d die—for I had but fifty cents.”

  There were a lot more verses and a lot more food she ate. Dad just leveled us kids with that song. He’d sing, and we’d just laugh and laugh.

  Sometimes he was in the mood for a gospel song. There was one he loved, “The City That Lies Foursquare.” He’d close his eyes and sling his head back and holler out, “I’m going to a city where my Jesus is the light.” And boy, you could tell he believed it. That’s the way he sang and played—I don’t think there’s anybody I’ve ever met who loved music more than my dad. He never played for a living, but he could have easily sung with Mr. Monroe or any of ’em.

  I told you before how my dad had incredible patience, and this was real important. Learning music, you make a lot of mistakes. It takes time—and he gave me his time—and it also takes a certain character. Dad had an easy-going nature; he had one steady pace and he kept at it. You could set your watch by the way he did things. My
great-grandfather Cornelius Skaggs was the same way, and Dad must have inherited it from him.

  All my life I’ve had a good sense of pitch. Playing out of tune or singing off-key just doesn’t sound good. I’ve never liked it. When Dad and I would play, I just couldn’t stand to be out of tune, so I was constantly fooling around with my mandolin, trying to get my eight strings in tune with the six on my dad’s guitar.

  As I’ve said, Dad was usually a very patient man. I’d seen him sit and wait for hours for a groundhog that had been getting into his tomato patch to come out of his hole so he could pop him with a .22 rifle. I’d seen him fish all day and not catch a thing and barely get a bite, and he’d be happy as can be. But to give me five minutes to tune up, you’d a-thought I’d asked him for a million dollars.

  One day I was busy tuning my mandolin, twiddling with those tuning pegs. After a few moments, he couldn’t take it anymore. He yelled out, “Son, if you’re a little out of tune, it’s all right. It just sounds like there’s more of us playin’!” Well, let me tell you, sometimes me and Dad sounded like a whole band.

  Dad had a great ear. He could always hear when a song wasn’t played the right way. He couldn’t necessarily tell me exactly what was wrong or show me by playing, but he could always hear the wrong notes or ones that didn’t fit. So he’d sit there patiently while I kept playing a song over and over again until I got it right. When he heard me get it right, he’d say, “That’s it, that’s it!” and then I was able to hear the difference, too. That is what you call learning it by ear, and in this case, two sets of ears, me and Dad’s both. He never got frustrated, so I didn’t, either. We just kept at it until we got it right.

  When I think of kids today learning music, I feel bad for ’em, because of all the distractions out there. If I could tell ’em one thing I know, it would be this simple advice: Just keep playing and get to know your instrument like it’s your best friend. Turn off the computer and the video games and things that drain your brain and find inspiration in your instrument. If you’re going to be a great player, you’ve got to spend a great amount of time practicing. When you’re not doing your chores or your schoolwork, you oughta be playing!

  Now, I ain’t gonna lie to you. There were plenty of times when I didn’t feel like practicing anymore. After hours of playing, I’d really get tired. My hands and fingers would get so sore. Sometimes, I’d even try to break a string when my dad wasn’t looking. If I broke a string, we’d have to call it quits and put the instruments up for the night. We didn’t have the luxury of going down the road for new strings.

  Well, one night, I’d been playing so hard for so long that I was dying to take a break. I saw my dad’s head turn, and I knew this was my big chance. I pressed down on the string behind the bridge, and since the string was worn out and ready to go, it snapped. I said, “Oh, sorry, Dad, I broke a string!” He looked sad, but quietly said, “Aw right, let’s put ’em up.” Mama saw me pull that stunt, but she didn’t say a word. She never did tell Dad. I guess she understood that I was tired and didn’t want to hurt Dad’s feeling by letting him know I had wanted to stop. If I hadn’t had my mom on my side, I don’t know what I’d have done. She was very sympathetic to my cause. Mom knew I was blessed with a lot of talent, but she also wanted me to have some fun and be a regular kid, too. And so she’d stand up for me when I wanted to stop playing for a bit. If she’d been as dedicated and driven as my dad, I am sure I would have worn my fingers down to bloody nubs.

  Mom was very understanding, and she knew when I’d had enough. She’d say, “Now, Daddy, just do one more and then let him rest.” And he’d say, “Let’s do one more and then you can quit.” But that one more always turned into more than one. He just loved music so much; there was always one more he wanted to do. Eventually I’d holler for help. “Hey, Mama, Dad is one-moring me to death!” and she’d finally put her foot down and make us stop.

  Most of the time, though, I was as raring to play as he was. He saw something in me and encouraged me. He pushed me to get better, and he pressed me to practice. He saw that I had the talent to go far with my music.

  One of the first audiences I played for was in Blaine at Butler’s Grocery, a general store a few miles from home where we’d go for sugar, coffee, and anything we couldn’t grow. The woman who ran the store was named Lorraine Butler Burton, and she was a precious, sweet lady. She loved everybody, and everybody loved her. You could buy food at Butler’s on credit, which came in handy later when Dad hurt his back and couldn’t work.

  Blaine had a post office, a gas station, a bank, a barbershop, and a couple of grocery stores. That was it. Butler’s was the oldest store in town and the one we always went to. The Butlers loved music, and the store was a local gathering place for years.

  Sometimes when Dad and I went over to Butler’s to buy groceries, we’d take our instruments with us. We’d play for hours and draw a big crowd. I’d sit with my mandolin on the old Coca-Cola cooler in the middle of the room. That cooler was the old horizontal kind with the two doors that opened on top. It stayed plenty cold for the pop they kept inside, all the Nehi Orange, root beer, 7-Up, RC Cola, grape soda, and ginger ale you could drink.

  After I’d played a while, Miss Lorraine would let me pick out whatever soda I wanted. I’d grab me a bottle, and it would taste so good. Sometimes there were even little icy crystals in that ice-cold pop. Dad would play all day long at Butler’s, drawing a big crowd into the little store. The only problem was that my little skinny butt would get so cold on that freezer that I couldn’t stand it for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.

  Dad taught me how to listen to music, how to really hear what the words were saying, and how to feel those words with my heart. When we sang “What Is a Home Without Love,” he’d help me understand the story of the song afterward. “Now that man is really hurting,” he’d say. “Did you listen to what was troubling him there in the words? How he don’t have nobody?” When you open your heart that-a-way, music is more than a bunch of notes.

  Beyond the music, Dad was a big influence as a role model. He was quiet in his ways. He was a godly man, but he didn’t preach it. He walked the faith, he lived it every day of his life. To me, he was everything, ’cause it seemed there was nothing he couldn’t do. He was a Christian, he was a musician, he was a welder, he was a farmer, he was a coon and squirrel hunter, he was a ginsenger, he was a fisherman.

  And he was a real Mr. Fix-It, too. Dad could fix anything with a pair of pliers, wire, and duct tape. A neighbor would call him on the phone and say, “Hobert, our cook stove is tore up. Could you come fix it?” He’d say, “Yeah, be over there in a little bit.” He’d grab some tools out of his toolbox and go over and get the stove fired up. It didn’t matter if it was ten below zero and the wind was howling, he’d crawl under somebody’s house and work on their frozen gas lines. Before we go any further and before I forget, I oughta tell you what a “ginsenger” is, because some of you may not have heard that term before. In the mountains, there’s a lot of ginseng growing wild, but it’s hard to find. It has green leaves and red berries, but it’s the root everybody’s after. You have to know where to look, and you have to walk around a lot to get to it, because it grows in small patches deep in the woods. My dad knew the secret places, and he was a fine ginseng hunter.

  Now, the reason people go out hunting for ginseng is because it’s worth a lot of money. It’s highly prized in Asia, where people use it for all sorts of remedies, especially over in China. There, a lot of people use ginseng as an aphrodisiac. When I was real little and curious about everything in the world, especially about whatever my dad was doing, I asked him, “Dad, what do they do with the ginseng you get out in the woods?” For a long time, he wouldn’t tell me. Finally, when I was a few years older, I asked him again, and this time he was ready for me: “Well, son,” he said, real serious. “China uses it to strengthen their nation!”

  Dad loved a lot of things, but above everything came
music—well, music and family. He really cherished that night in Martha when I got to sing on stage with Mr. Monroe; he told the story to friends and family and anyone who’d listen. Part of the reason was fatherly pride—his own son playing on stage with his hero Bill Monroe was a big moment for my dad. That night confirmed his deep desire to see me become a real musician. It seemed like the natural thing to do was start a family band—Dad could continue to teach me and nurture what he loved most, his family and his music. So we started our own group, the Skaggs Family. Most of the time, it was just the three of us: Dad on guitar, me on mandolin, and Mom singing and clapping her hands.

  Sometimes our friend Elmer Burchitt joined us on banjo. Walter Adams and Dad’s cousin Euless Wright joined us on fiddle. Euless was a big influence on me. He taught me a lot about how to play music and how not to live. Family bands were a dime a dozen in those days, but we had a secret weapon, and that was my Dad. Thanks to his energy and his friendly ways, people started hearing a lot about the Skaggs Family. He had faith in me ’cause I was so young and I had talent, and he played it to the hilt. He got some cool-looking handbills printed up with a group photo that said, “The Skaggs Family Featuring Little Rickie Skaggs, World’s Youngest Mandolin Player.” I don’t know if that was really true or not, but Dad sure hadn’t heard of anybody younger. Even if I wasn’t the youngest mandolin player, I may have been the littlest, ’cause I wasn’t even four foot tall.

  Ours wasn’t much of a stage show. We didn’t do comedy, and we didn’t do a lot of talking. We just played and sang the same songs we did around the house, family favorites by Red Foley and Molly O’Day and radio hits like “Cup of Loneliness” and “Window up Above” by George Jones. Mom and I sang a lot of duets, and Dad would sing lead or sometimes bass, in the same way A.P. Carter used to back up Sara and Maybelle on those old Carter Family records. When Dad sang lead, Mom would sing tenor, and I’d sing high tenor like Pee Wee Lambert did with the Stanley Brothers, and it gave us a real haunting sound.