by Ricky Skaggs
Looking back now, I realize that my heart was changing, and I was slow to catch up. I knew I wasn’t living right, not the way I should have been. I knew in my heart I needed to live right, to tell the truth. I got a big dose of truth when I went to see my Grandpa Thompson. He was ailing with terminal cancer, and I drove up to Columbus, Ohio, to check in and see how he was doing.
When I got there, it was plain to see he was dying, and he didn’t try to hide it. We talked for a while about the old times we had together fishing and hunting and seeing the horses at the Darby Dan farm where he used to work as night watchman. Then he got real serious, and he said he wanted to say something to me before I headed back to Lexington.
“Pap’s gonna die, and I won’t be seeing you no more on this side,” he said. “Now, I want you to promise me that you’ll see me on the other side, and that you’ll be there with me in heaven.”
I couldn’t say nothing. I just started crying.
“Now, son, don’t worry. You know how to get there. You know that all you have to do is give your life to Jesus and trust in Him, ’cause He’s the only way to heaven.”
“I promise, Papaw,” I said, trying to be brave as I could. “I promise you I’ll see you in heaven.”
“Now, son, this is serious. I’m not just jokin’ or teasin’. Pap’s serious about this.”
“I know, Papaw, and I promise you, I’ll be in heaven with you.” “Well, I’ll be looking for you.”
Then I hugged him, and he kissed me, and boy, it like to have killed me to have to leave him that day. I was sitting in the car and just bawling, and I turned on the engine and started backing out of the driveway. But before I hit the road, I put it in drive and went straight back. I ran in the house and hugged him one more time.
Driving back to Kentucky, I knew there was some heavy truth in what Pap had said to me. I’d been saved at thirteen, but I wasn’t really growing as a Christian, and I think he knew that. He knew I needed to make a deeper commitment, and he was giving me a nudge. Papaw was right.
Later on I came to realize that Boone Creek had inspired a young generation of pickers and singers. Exciting bluegrass groups like Alison Krauss and Union Station, the Lonesome River Band, Blue Highway, and IIIrd Tyme Out. You just never know where your music will drop a seed.
Alison Krauss said she learned to sing harmony listening to our records. Now, Alison, she’s a freak of nature, she really is. She woulda been an awesome singer whether she heard Boone Creek or not. But it was nice of her to tell me.
Boone Creek was together for two years, and we made two albums that didn’t sell all that well. But we had an underground influence, and it was something we could be proud of. Once again, I was moving on to new territory.
Chapter 13
HOT BAND
I know dark, clouds will gather ’round me,
I know my way is rough and steep,
Yet beauteous fields lie just before me,
where God’s redeemed, their vigils keep.
—“Wayfaring Stranger,” by Emmylou Harris, 1980
I learned an incredible amount from having Ricky Skaggs in the band. We did a different kind of harmony singing, and there were a lot more specific parts.
—Emmylou Harris, from Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Country Music in America, edited by Paul Kingsbury and Alanna Nash
Right on cue, I got a phone call. It was Emmylou, and it sure was nice to hear her sweet voice. She told me Rodney Crowell was leaving her band, and I was number one on the call list for the job. She said I could sing Rodney’s vocal parts and play mandolin and fiddle and guitar, and anything else I wanted. She was offering a full-time spot in the Hot Band. I told her I’d call her back in couple of days and give her an answer.
I needed some time to think about my position in Boone Creek. We were a unique band playing cool bluegrass our own way. These guys were creative musicians and some of my closest friends. I was doing most of the managerial duties, bookkeeping and making calls for show dates. The band depended on me.
With Emmylou, I knew I’d have a steady paycheck, which I didn’t have in Boone Creek and wouldn’t have in the foreseeable future. The Hot Band would offer me a chance to learn more about other types of music, and even more important, I’d have some financial security for my family. As hard as it was to leave Boone Creek, I felt I needed it to do it. So I called Emmy and took the job.
Next thing I knew, I was on a jet plane, going from Lexington to Los Angeles. I’d stay there a week or a few weeks at a time, and then I’d fly back home to see Brenda and Mandy. I never did move out to the West Coast. California’s a fine place to live, but I sure was glad Emmy didn’t require me to move out there. It was hard being away from the family. On July 25, 1979, not too long after I joined the Hot Band, our son Andrew was born. Now there were two cute little faces tugging at my heartstrings. We felt so blessed, and I also felt better prepared to provide for our children now that I had a steady job with a regular paycheck. They had a nice place in Lexington and a good mama there at home with them. I saw myself as the provider, and everything else came after that.
Mandy and Andrew were so young and cute and all, and I know they missed their daddy, same as I missed my dad when he was gone on his welding jobs. I wish I could have been around more, but I had a great opportunity and knew I’d made the right decision. Brenda tried to understand as best she could, and I know it wasn’t easy for her. When you’re a musician, you have to go where the gigs are. Probably neither of us reckoned I’d be gone for so long and stay so busy. It sure didn’t help our marriage any.
I really was lucky to have Emmy for a boss. She was more like the coolest sister you could ever have. She remembered what I’d told her a few years before, when I said I wanted to be more than just a picker in somebody’s band. She helped me to spread my wings even further, and she hired me as much for my singing as for my picking. With Rodney gone, there was a hole in the band’s harmony structure, and Emmy filled that hole with my mountain voice. My mandolin, fiddle, and guitar diversified the band’s sound even more.
Singing wasn’t gonna be a problem, but the picking had me worried. This was my first time working in an electric band. It was an area I hadn’t really traipsed around in that much. I was grounded in acoustic music my whole life, so plugging in was a big leap. Emmy’s guys were seasoned pros, the best around. They weren’t called the Hot Band for nothing. To tell you the truth, I was a little fearful of jumping in the pool. I knew I had to swim well enough to keep my head above the waterline. Instead of worrying myself, though, I decided to let the circumstances guide me. It was time to plug in and learn something new.
A band is a team, and I wanted to be a good team player. There wasn’t much time to get up to speed, either, ’cause Emmy was starting to cut tracks for the album Blue Kentucky Girl, her venture into a more rootsy, traditional country sound. Then we were doing some rehearsing and heading overseas for a European tour. Things were happening fast, and I had to jump in with both feet.
The late ’70s was the disco era, and Los Angeles was ground zero for dance clubs and the partying nightlife. It was the fast lane for that crowd, but none of that stuff interested me at all. Still, there was a lot to like about Los Angeles. Everything you could ever want was at your fingertips. There were restaurants serving food from all over the world and at all hours of the night. I wasn’t too adventurous, but I did love the Mexican restaurant that served enchiladas you could never have dreamed of in Kentucky. It was right around the corner from the hotel where I stayed whenever I was in L.A.
My commute was a breeze, and for Los Angeles, that’s saying a lot. Every day I took a ten-minute drive from the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Laurel Canyon to Emmylou’s ranch house on Lania Lane, tucked in the woods of Coldwater Canyon. Emmy and Brian Ahern, her husband and producer, had turned their rented home into a recording studio, and they worked on music every day. Their life was music, just like mine.
The recording console and cont
rol booth were in a mobile unit, which was actually a forty-foot-long semi parked in the driveway. It was called the Enactron Truck, and it was Brian’s favorite place. He ran audio cables through the yard into the house, and he ran the sessions from the truck, headphones clamped on his big mop of curls, listening in to what we were playing and calling out to us from the soundboard like P.T. Barnum.
The truck was Brian’s brainchild, and the control booth was his catbird’s seat; his ears were all he needed to monitor the action in the studio. We’d do a lot of overdubs and background singing and vocal fixes in the truck, in a room at the far end he called the Comfort Zone. That’s where I ended up spending a lot of time, trying to learn as much as I could about the producer’s craft. I wanted to know how to make the best-sounding records, and I had the perfect teacher.
When it came to vintage audio equipment, Lania Lane was a heaven on earth. Brian had a microphone collection to die for: tube mics from the ’40s and ’50s made by Telefunken, Neumann, Schoeps, and PML. I was learning about compression and EQ, and which mic to use for vocals and which mic for what instrument. Neve, Lang, Langevin, Teletronix. He knew how to use all of it to the fullest. He didn’t rely on studio gimmicks and shortcuts, and he took his time, a slow-food chef in a fast-food music industry. He cared about quality.
What I admired most was Brian’s determination and dedication. It wasn’t trendy to be making cutting-edge country records in L.A. He was a maverick outside the Nashville system. Even later, when he did move to Nashville, he brought his Enactron Truck with him. He never was embraced by the establishment as a “Nashville” producer, because he took more time making a record than most producers in this town. He couldn’t change his stripes. Brian was more of an artist than an assembly-line guy. It was during those incredible nights on Lania Lane that I became a studio hound. Producing is all about mixing the proper elements, and you have to experiment. Brian loved to create effects so he could capture on record a sound he had in his head: You can hear how adventurous he could get on “Beneath Still Waters,” a number-one hit from Blue Kentucky Girl on which he made James Burton’s electric guitar sound as if it were being strummed underwater. I was lucky to have Brian. When he was mixing, I’d stick my head in the control room and listen, pestering him with all kinds of questions about the technical stuff. It was astounding to see him work on a track from scratch, bringing out richer and deeper mixes. His rough mixes sounded better than some producers’ final ones.
After a week or so of rehearsals and finishing the sessions for Blue Kentucky Girl, the Hot Band headed out for the European tour. The first leg was in Ireland, and we started in Dublin. It’s a very friendly city, and some local musicians invited us to bring our instruments and join ’em at a ceili. That’s Gaelic for a musical gathering. Sort of a Celtic jam session. I’d never heard of a ceili, which is pronounced “kay-lee,” so I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into that place, I thought I’d died and gone to eastern Kentucky.
The ceili was held at a grand old house in downtown Dublin. It was organized by the Folk Music Society of Ireland; the name of the place was in Gaelic. It had a good-sized living room with the old plaster walls you’d see in Boston or New York. The room had a huge brick fireplace with a big roaring log fire, and it was crowded. It was wintertime, but inside this place it was as hot as the music they were playing.
The center of the action was an old man sitting in a big ol’ armchair. He ran everything from his seat, calling for this or that song. He wore a suit and looked like he’d just come from church. He reminded me of my dad in the way he commanded respect—he was clearly the patriarch of the community, helping to preserve a traditional music that went back centuries. At this ceili, he introduced the evening’s entertainment in his wonderful Irish accent.
He knew all the musicians and dancers and kept the music flowing, seguing from a fiddle tune to an accordion song or to something solemn with the bagpipes. Then he’d call out for a dance number, and a bunch of girls and boys would come leaping out of the crowd into the middle of the floor, and they’d dance up a storm. This was all new to me, and I just loved it.
What a feeling of belonging. I felt a kinship with these folks. Though I didn’t know it at the time, many of my ancestors were indeed from Ireland.
I was amazed how familiar the songs were. I knew some by different titles, but the melodies were the same. Lord, I thought to myself, how Santford Kelly would have loved sitting in with these old Dublin fiddlers.
Before this night, I didn’t know much about Irish music. But what I heard at the ceili was a revelation. Inside I felt the higher purpose of the trip. I was having a musical homecoming.
If nothing else happens on this whole tour, I said to myself, almost like a prayer, it was worth it all to have been here at this ceili tonight.
Everything about the ceili reminded me of my upbringing. There was a big spread of food and drinks. Women were busy in the other room cutting sandwiches and making tea and coffee, same as my mom did when we had picking parties on the weekends back in Kentucky. ’Course, mama didn’t allow any alcohol in the house, but it was the same feeling of hospitality. I felt like I was at home on Brushy again.
A ceili is about much more than music. It’s a way to preserve tradition and promote fellowship and keep the old ways alive. What stays with me the most from that night was when the old man sang an old ballad in Gaelic from his armchair. He didn’t play any instruments that I know of, but Lord, he could sing. ’Course, I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but his voice was so beautiful. It was so mournful and heartfelt, and I could hear the way it connected with the singers from our mountains, like Roscoe Holcomb and Ralph Stanley.
* * *
Traveling with Emmylou, I saw how the guys in the band made friends with technology. I was getting to watch Albert Lee play shows night after night, and I was amazed at the way he mastered any amplifier and any stage setup. His tone was in his hands. Didn’t matter what he was playing through—it could be a small Princeton amp or a big ol’ Fender Dual Showman Reverb, and his guitar would have the same gorgeous tone. The real magic wasn’t in the gear; it was there in his right hand. Albert’s got great-sounding hands. So do so many great musicians, including the legendary James Burton, who was lead guitarist in the Hot Band before Albert and still played on Emmy’s records as session man. One time I asked Mr. Monroe why his mandolin sounded so good. He just stuck out his leathery farmer’s hands with knotty calloused fingers and said, “These hands.”
For me, the sheer volume of an electric show was definitely an issue, and a lot of it had to do with the size of the places we were playing. When playing larger venues, the instruments had to be plugged in to give them the volume they needed to be heard by the audience. This was all new to me, and to tell you the truth, I’ve never totally liked the sound of a banjo or a fiddle played through a pickup. Even thirty years later, technology hasn’t made banjos and fiddles sound much better. I still use microphones; that’s the best for a natural sound.
Something happened on the European tour that scared me half to death and also taught me a lesson. I had a routine with the road crew to handle the instrument changes I had to make. After I played a few songs on mandolin, a member of the crew would be there to take it from me and hand me a guitar, plugged in and ready to go. One night near the end of the tour, we had made the exchange and I happened to see, out of the corner of my eye, one roadie pitching my Loar F-5 mandolin to another. Luckily, he caught it and put it safely in the case, but I was less than happy.
When I saw that 1924 Loar flying through the air, all I could think was: If that thing hits the ground, that’s the end of it. At that time, the mandolin was probably worth $7,500, but to me it was priceless. I decided right then that there was no way I was going to carry this precious mandolin on the road anymore and take a chance on it getting broken or stolen. So I retired my Loar from touring.
I still have that mandolin, and I still play it from time to ti
me. It’s worth a lot more than $7,500 these days, but I’d never sell it. It’ll always have a special place in my heart, like an old friend you’ve been through so much with and will never forget.
Emmy leaned on me for the traditional stuff, and I was happy to give her support. I was her go-to guy for the bluegrass and old-timey mountain music. Emmy wasn’t just dabbling. She was serious, and I truly respected her devotion. She had an intuition for what suited her vocal style, and she knew a good song when she heard it. It’s just that she didn’t always know where to get the good old songs. After rehearsal and sound check, whenever we had time to kill, I’d sing country and bluegrass tunes I knew from childhood, ones that Emmylou had never heard, not even when she was singing with Gram. One she loved was “I’ll Go Stepping Too” by Lester and Earl. Her bass player, Emory Gordy, was a huge bluegrass fan, and he’d usually jump in and help out. We always had a bluegrass warm-up to get ready for the show. It was a real growth period, and it led to a fruitful collaboration, the pair of traditional albums Roses in the Snow and Light of the Stable.
Emmylou and Brian had been itching to make a bonafide bluegrass record for a while. Blue Kentucky Girl was a critical and commercial success, earning Emmy two hit singles and a Grammy. It proved she could move closer to traditional country without sacrificing radio play and record sales. She and Brian had earned the right to do as they pleased. They wanted to wander further away from the mainstream with an acoustic record, with the material that fit that sound, and that meant bluegrass. With me in the band for a while and comfortable in my role, they figured now was the time. Emmy and Brian wanted me to help choose and arrange the songs. The idea was to highlight the stark beauty of bluegrass, the interplay of voices and instruments, and let Brian add his touches to give it a modern feel. Without the electric bass and drums, the rhythm section was anchored by Brian’s giant Gibson Super 400 archtop guitar, and he focused on that aspect while I worked on the acoustic string-band arrangements, and got the right musicians for the job. First off, I brought in Tony Rice to handle lead-guitar chores on his Martin D-28 herringbone. I also wanted to bring in Jerry Douglas to play Dobro, which would replace the steel guitar sound that had been prominent on Emmylou’s records. The White girls, Sharon and Cheryl, were already seasoned singers who’d worked with Emmy on Blue Kentucky Girl, so she asked them to add their skills on harmony.