Kentucky Traveler

by Ricky Skaggs

  We had left our instrument cases in the dressing room, and we hurried back to move our stuff out of Ralph’s way. Ralph and the band were there getting ready to go on stage. The room was cramped and hotter than blazes, but we were sweating more out of nerves than anything. Ralph already had his banjo strapped on, and he could hardly move it was so crowded. “We’re so sorry to be in your way,” I said.

  “That’s all right, boys,” said Ralph. “Thank you for holding the crowd for us. You boys done a fine job. You sound like me and Carter when we were young. You brought back a lot of old memories of when we was first gettin’ started.”

  We were thrilled. Ralph Stanley’s thanking us? Band members Roy Lee Centers and George Shuffler came over, and they bragged on us, too, and soon Curly Ray Cline piped up, “You boys really do sound just like Ralph and Carter!” We were just glad to get a chance to help out.

  Ralph Stanley is a man of few words, especially when it comes to bragging on somebody. After getting to know him through the years, I learned that even if Ralph liked something, a lot of times he wouldn’t ever tell you. He’d just smile his tight little smile and acknowledge it, but he wouldn’t verbalize it. So it was only years later that I realized what a huge compliment he’d paid us that night. Hearing us sing really touched him, and he wanted us to know it.

  Looking back now, that night was one of those defining moments you have in your life. When Ralph walked into that beer joint and saw us for the first time, singing out of the Stanley Brothers songbook chapter and verse, he saw the younger generation keeping his music alive, and he saw the future. It was his history, all right, but it was our future.

  Then we got a table and watched Ralph and the Clinch Mountain Boys, and my God, what a show. They were all about the music. They weren’t wild or fancy. They got right down to business, as if they were compensating for making everybody wait.

  It was just the four of ’em, not the full band, but it was solid. Roy Lee was playing and singing hungry; he was a real find. On some songs, you could close your eyes and swear he was Carter. And George Shuffler, he was known for his cross-picking guitar, but on this night he was playing bass, and he was unreal. Curly, being a West Virginia boy, was the crowd favorite. Ralph was Ralph, which is to say, about the best mountain singer ever. He was in his prime, and so was his band. They were tight as could be.

  Near the end of the first set, Ralph gave us another surprise. “Those boys was awful good,” he said. “How ’bout if we get ’em back up to do another show during our break?” and the crowd gave us a big applause. Oh, what a night to remember!

  We hadn’t planned to play anymore, but we were glad to give it another go. “Do some more of them old ones from way back,” Ralph told us before we went on stage, and he even made some requests. It wasn’t just a trip down memory lane he was interested in. I think he really enjoyed hearing the Stanley classics sung again, the way he and Carter used to do ’em.

  Good thing I’d found the stash of records at that Columbus record store. Good thing Dad had that spare hundred bucks. We played every song he asked for. “Lonesome River” and “Angels Are Singing in Heaven Tonight,” the songs from those 78-rpm records Keith and I had learned. Ralph later admitted he was trying to see if there were any old Stanley Brothers songs we didn’t know. As far as he could figure, there weren’t. I think we’d passed the first exam.

  After the second set, we were back in the dressing room again, packing up for the night. Ralph bragged on us some more, saying when he first walked in the club he thought there was a jukebox playing Stanley Brothers records, until he realized it was a couple of kids.

  Dad reminded Ralph of the shows in Prestonsburg and Blaine when Carter invited me to play my little mandolin with the band. Dad couldn’t help himself, and he laid it on a little thick: “After Ricky played, you know, Carter told him, ‘Son, one of these days Bill Monroe will have to take a backseat to you!’” We laughed, and Ralph did, too, because we knew it was just Carter being Carter, as nice and gracious to a kid like me as he’d be to the president.

  Ralph said he remembered that night, and he asked how old I was back then. When I told him nine years old, he said, “Well, you sure have growed up.” He asked how old Keith and I were now, and we told him fifteen. He said he had another show the next month at the same club in Fort Gay. He invited us to come back and play again as his special guests. We’d be there.

  On the ride home, me and Keith were going stir-crazy. We had trouble sitting still in the car seats. We wanted to jump for joy. We just couldn’t hardly believe this was happening to us.

  Keith and I had made a name locally with our family bands, and we’d won some talent contests and appeared on TV and radio shows. But this was different. This was me and him together. It wasn’t just about me by myself or Keith by himself anymore. It was the two of us, and the possibility of careers in the music business. It wasn’t just a crazy dream. It was real.

  The only thing we knew for sure was that it was the greatest night of our lives. This was the first time somebody with any notoriety had recognized real potential in us. And not just anybody, but Ralph Stanley himself. He was more than just a bluegrass star; he was our hero. And he was more respected than anybody in bluegrass outside of Bill Monroe.

  Nobody respected Ralph more than Dad did, and I knew how much this moment must have meant to him. I could see by the smile on his face the whole ride home how happy and proud he was to see his efforts with me validated. All those hours together practicing music—there was a sense of shared accomplishment that you can’t put a price on.

  When I think back on it, especially now that he’s gone, I know I didn’t tell my dad nearly enough how much I appreciated what he did for me, all the while putting up with so much from me, the childish crap and whining I gave him when I was tired from practicing. I wish I could say to him, Dad, thank you for working so hard with me all those years. Thank you for your love and patience and for the gift of music.

  Next month, we were at Jim & Fay’s again as Ralph’s special opening act. It went over even better than the first time. Afterward, Ralph had a proposition for us. There was a bluegrass show coming up in Reidsville, North Carolina. It was the Camp Springs bluegrass Festival run by Carlton Haney, and one of the biggest festivals around. Haney was planning a salute to the Stanley Brothers. He had already done a Bill Monroe tribute, and this one was for Ralph and Carter. Ralph wanted to have us sing the old songs as part of the tribute, which was called “The Stanley Brothers Story” and would be narrated by Haney.

  We didn’t know a thing about Carlton Haney or his tributes; we didn’t know he was the promoter who got the whole bluegrass festival thing started. All we knew is that we were ready to do whatever Ralph wanted us to do. To settle everything proper, he invited us to bring our parents and come down for a visit to his house near Coeburn in southwest Virginia.

  Once school let out in June, we headed out to old Virginia, just like the long hunters going home through the Cumberland Gap after a long expedition. ’Course, we had a station wagon to carry us instead of horses. With it being summer, we made a family vacation out of the long drive. We camped out at Mount Mitchell State Park, and then we swung through Erwin, Tennessee, which was old long hunter country. It was like traveling back to the wilderness places my ancestors roamed centuries ago, only Henry Skaggs and his men didn’t have all the truck stops along the way!

  We finally made it to the old Stanley home place in Dickenson County, Virginia, where Ralph and Carter had grown up and started playing music together when they were boys. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Smith Ridge. It was so high up you could see clear back to Kentucky. This was real hill country. The mountains in southwestern Virginia were higher than what we had in Lawrence County.

  Keith and his parents were there, too, and everybody got to meet Ralph’s mother, Lucy, who was by then getting up in years. You could see Ralph took after his mother, not only in his looks but in his quiet ways. Sh
e was good country people. We also got to meet Ralph’s wife, Jimmi, who was pregnant with their first daughter. We all fell in love with Jimmi and her sweet smile and her hospitality. She made you feel like family.

  Ralph asked me and Keith to sing some of the old songs for his mama. Miss Lucy sat there listening and just teared up. I guess it made her think about the old days. We didn’t mean to make her sad, of course, but we didn’t realize at the time all that she had been through in her life, so much hardship and sorrow. At least she had Ralph and all her kinfolk close by.

  We had a big supper, and even before Jimmi brought out the dessert, everything was settled about us going on the road with Ralph. There was no need for any powwows or family meetings. My folks were happy with the arrangement, and Mr. and Mrs. Whitley were of the same mind. Everybody agreed it was a great opportunity. The verdict was unanimous: “It’ll be good for the boys.”

  It was still a few weeks before the big festival in Reidsville, but we just couldn’t wait that long. We knew Ralph was playing in Columbus, Ohio, at a country music park called Frontier Ranch. It was a long drive, but we wanted to surprise him. There wasn’t anything happening in eastern Kentucky that could compare to playing on stage with Ralph Stanley.

  Dad drove as usual, with me and Keith singing and playing the whole way in the back seat. When we got to Frontier Ranch, it turned out exactly the way we wanted. We caught Ralph backstage; he was surprised, and he glad to see us, too. “What are you boys doing up here?” he said. “Why don’t y’all sing a few with us?”

  We hustled out to the parking lot, and I told Dad that Ralph wanted us to join him on stage. He gave me the keys so I could unlock the trunk to get the instruments. I took my mandolin case off the top of the pile, and Keith got his guitar. Then my dad reached down and pulled out his guitar from the bottom of the trunk, as he’d done so many times. But I said to him, “Hey, Dad, Ralph just wants me and Keith to sing with him and the band.”

  Dad froze up and looked surprised, as if I’d splashed cold water on his face. Somehow, he got his composure back. He bent down and set his guitar gently back in the trunk. “Okay son,” he said. “That’s fine.” I knew it wasn’t fine, though. I could tell it hurt his feelings.

  Dad still felt like he was part of the band we had with Keith’s brother Dwight, and we didn’t want that part to change. When we weren’t playing with Ralph, we were still the Lonesome Mountain Boys, doing our local gigs and our radio show.

  But Dad knew deep down what was happening. He knew that when it came to playing with Ralph, it had to be just me and Keith. He’d just grabbed his guitar out of habit. He knew we were our own musicians now and had been called to a new station in life.

  Of course, I felt awful for him, and I really didn’t know what to say. But after we went back inside, Dad was like Dad again, making new friends everywhere he turned. Right off, he found a kindred spirit in the crowd, Hazel Lambert, the widow of Pee Wee Lambert. Pee Wee had died way too young, a year before Carter passed. He was forty when he had a heart attack. Hazel lived in Columbus. She was still a fan of Ralph’s music, and she’d come to the show with her daughter. Afterward, I got to meet her, and she was as nice and sweet as could be. “I loved Pee Wee,” I said. “He was my favorite Clinch Mountain Boy.” She said, “Oh, thank you, honey.” I told Miss Hazel how much I loved Pee Wee’s high tenor singing, the part I sang when we did the trios with Ralph. I told her how much his mandolin playing meant to me, too.

  She was so glad to hear me say that, and she wanted me to know Pee Wee never lost his love for bluegrass. Even though he’d left the music business to work a day job in his later years, he played the bluegrass bars of Columbus right up until the end. He could never quit music.

  Finally, the big weekend came. That first trip to the Camp Springs Bluegrass Festival was how our careers started, really. It was the first time we traveled by ourselves, without our parents driving us. It was our first time on the bus with the Clinch Mountain Boys. It was also our first taste of the music business and life on the road as a musician. More than forty years later, I’m still on the road, riding the bus to the next show.

  Dad dropped off Keith and me so we could meet up with everybody at Ralph’s place. When the bus pulled out and started down the mountain, my stomach was turning in knots. We were taking it all in, looking out the windows at the coal chutes on trestles zigzagging above the winding road, neither of us quite believing we were actually on Ralph Stanley’s bus headed for a show. My God in heaven, here we were!

  Ralph had a 1950 Aerocoach bus converted for his five-man band. And now he had to squeeze in two more Clinch Mountain Boys to haul down the road. It was so cramped for space, just some tiny bunk beds thirty-something inches wide for these grown men to sleep in—and none for us new kids. Keith and me got these old ramrod, upright seats up front. You could lean them back a click or two, but that was it. So we sat up as straight as two hoot owls the whole ride down to Reidsville, North Carolina. To tell the truth, we were way too excited to sleep anyhow.

  After about an hour, Ralph started firing off requests. Curly Ray was up front in the buddy seat, and Ralph was at the wheel. I thought that was so cool: Ralph Stanley driving his own bus! Eyes on the road, Ralph would ask me and Keith if we knew a certain song. “Yes, sir,” we’d say. And he’d tell us to sing it for him. So we’d start singing, without a guitar or anything. We’d get done with that one, and he’d ask about another. Nearly every song he asked for, we knew. He was loving it.

  I noticed that sometimes, while we’d be singing, Ralph and Curly would be talking to each other in low voices. We’d just about run out of songs when I overheard Curly ask him, “Reckon he’s still up?” and Ralph said, “I bet he is.” I was thinking, What in the world are they talking about? Soon Ralph swung the bus around, pulling off the main road and going down another, and then down another. This was some serious detour considering we had a festival we were supposed to be going to! I was thinking, Well, this surely ain’t the way to North Carolina.

  Finally we stopped. There wasn’t a house or even a mailbox in sight. It was the middle of nowhere. Curly got off the bus and started walking down into the woods.

  Now mind you, this was long before cell phones, before you could call somebody ahead of time and ask to stop by. Curly went barreling into the woods, and it was plenty dark, too. And Ralph was just a-sitting there at the wheel, like everything was absolutely fine. Finally, I asked Ralph, “Where did Curly go off to?” I thought maybe nature had called him. Ralph said sorta sharp, “He’s going to talk to a feller about something.” I thought to myself, Okay, Skaggs, just shut up. This is their business, not yours!

  About twenty minutes later, here came Curly back on the bus. He was almost out of breath from walking in the woods, but he had a big ol’ Curly Ray grin on his red face. He was carrying a jar, just like one of my mama’s canning fruit jars. It was quart-size and full of clear liquid. Clear as spring water. But I knew he hadn’t spend all that time down in the woods going after water. Ralph said, “That looks fine.” It was the first time I’d ever seen moonshine.

  I thought to myself, If my mama knew what I was seeing, she’d beat us all to a pulp! Well, I don’t think I ever told her about that jar of ’shine. Never got up the nerve, I guess. I really didn’t have to tell her a lot of things, though. She seemed to always know when something wasn’t right with me. Mama and the Holy Ghost were a force to be reckoned with!

  Many years later, when I was talking to Ralph about this, I told him, “Honestly, if my mother had known that I was out there with y’all on the road, with a quart jar of moonshine on the bus . . .” Then Ralph said, “She’d a-probably whipped every one of us!” and we had a good laugh.

  At the time, though, it wasn’t very funny. I felt like I was in over my head, to tell the truth. I hadn’t ever been around moonshine. Euless just drank whiskey or beer. Here it was, the real stuff, the good ol’ mountain dew, what the old-timers used to talk about.
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  Curly took the jar to the back of the bus and that turned out to be the end of it. Keith and I didn’t partake, and nobody asked us too. Ralph wouldn’t have stood for it. This was strictly for the other Clinch Mountain Boys. Still, it was something I’ll never forget, the whole dynamic. It was new, and a little scary.

  It was still way before dawn when the bus finally pulled into Reidsville. We hadn’t slept a wink, but it didn’t matter. Carlton Haney’s Camp Springs event wasn’t just the first time Keith and me had played a bluegrass festival. It was our first festival, period.

  Same for my Dad. He had driven down by himself and got there not long after we did. He knocked on the door of the bus and asked if he could come in and shave and wash up. ’Course, Ralph told him that’d be fine, and Dad got out the razor he’d brought and found the sink there in the back of the bus where Ralph had his bed. Over that sink there was a window with little curtains, not a mirror, so Dad started shaving without really being able to see what he was doing. He ended up cutting himself pretty bad with that ol’ double-edge razor.

  Talk about a close shave! He had some nasty cuts on his face where he’d stuck pieces of toilet paper to dry up the blood. He looked like a leper when he came up front to sit down to visit for a while, and he said to Ralph, “I never could shave without a mirror.” And Ralph said, “Hobert, there’s a mirror back there as long as you are!” Dad sorta grumbled, “Huh, why there ain’t no mirror back there!” Ralph said, “Behind the door.” So Dad marched right back there and opened a closet door next to the sink that he hadn’t noticed, and lo and behold, there was a full-length mirror on the back of that door.