Kentucky Traveler

by Ricky Skaggs

  It was a big boost to my career at a time when nobody knew who Ricky Skaggs was. I’ll always be grateful to Emmy. And to have the Whites share the moment, too; it was ice cream on the cake. The Opry crowd made a lot of noise stamping and clapping for the old Stanley Brothers songs done hard-core country-style, and they made me feel welcome. To get to be a guest on the Grand Ole Opry was the coolest thing ever!

  Mom and Dad were back home on Brushy Creek, listening to the Opry on the radio the same way they had since they were newlyweds, when they would tune in to hear Monroe and all the rest of their favorites. Now their little Ricky was on the Opry, too, singing on the radio. Quite a special moment for Hobert and Dorothy Skaggs and, especially for Dad, a dream come true. Had it been only twenty years since the Opry security guard Mr. Bell had taken pity on a mountain man and his mandolin-playing son and let them sneak backstage?

  By now, Sharon and I decided it was time to start a new chapter in our lives. We both had dreams to make it in the music business, and we were gonna help each other as best we could. Sharon’s career with the Whites was already up and going, and mine was starting to take off. We decided to take the ride together.

  Our wedding was at the Two Rivers Mansion, an antebellum plantation house outside Nashville, on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland and Stones rivers. We tried to keep the guest list small, just family and a few friends. I’d only been in town a little while, but Sharon had been here since 1971. She and the Whites knew everybody in Nashville, from Hazel Smith to Grandpa Jones. With so many musicians coming to celebrate, we decided to make our wedding day into a pickin’ party. On the invitations, we made a special request:

  NO GIFTS, PLEASE. BRING A COVERED DISH AND YOUR INSTRUMENT TO HELP US CELEBRATE.

  The night before the wedding, we got a head start on the festivities with a musical get-together at my apartment, and we had us a big ol’ time. My folks were staying with me, and they’d brought family friends, Bud and Ophelia Huntley. Bud used to book the Clinch Mountain Boys at a little schoolhouse in Franklin, North Carolina. After one show, we went to the Huntleys’ house for dinner out in the country. Ophelia had fried up a chicken and made some biscuits and gravy, and we had an unbelievable meal, with Keith, Curly Ray, Roy, Jack, and Ralph crowded around the supper table.

  During my time with Ralph, Bud and my dad had become great friends. Dad would drive down to Bud’s and go out in the woods diggin’ for ginseng in the Carolina mountains. Then Bud would come over to our place in eastern Kentucky and go coon hunting with us. Bud was a stonemason by trade, and he even built the fireplace and chimney for Dad and Mom’s new house on Brushy Creek.

  That pre-wedding party turned into quite a bash. People kept dropping by, and my place could hardly hold everybody. It was like being back on Brushy Creek, when neighbors gathered at our place to sing and play. I remember Maria Muldaur came by to wish us well, and she joined in on the musicmaking. When she heard my mom sing, she started to cry. She’d never heard an ol’ mountain woman’s voice like my mom’s, and it touched her heart.

  That night, we roared till past two or three in the morning. As usual, my Dad was the boss and kept asking for “one more.” Back on Brushy in the old days, you remember, he knew how to clear the place out when it got too late. Well, now it was my turn, and I put my foot down. “Dad,” I said. “We gotta let everybody go and get some sleep. Didja forget that I gotta get married tomorrow?”

  Well, Dad did what he was told. But don’t you know, on the big day, bless his heart, he almost missed the ceremony. We were running late, and there he sat with the reel-to-reel machine out, listening to the tapes he’d made of Santford Kelly. When we finally made it out the door, Dad was following me in his car with Bud and Ophelia and Mom. What shoulda been a twenty-minute drive took us three times that. Poor Dad couldn’t keep up, much as I tried to guide him. Seemed like he was bound and determined to get lost.

  Over at the mansion, everybody was waiting on us. Sharon was busy telling folks we’d be there any minute. I thought she’d be worried sick, but she later told me her heart was as light as a feather that day. We had asked the McLain Family Band to entertain the guests as they arrived. The McLains were a wonderful traditional country group from Kentucky and good friends of ours. They were supposed to play for about fifteen minutes and, after the vows, maybe serenade the newlyweds with a few tunes. They ended up putting on a whole darn show, and they kept going for almost an hour while the groom and half the wedding party was AWOL.

  Then a big cloud of dust came churning up the driveway, with gravel flying everywhere. From a distance you’d have sworn it was Richard Petty on the backstretch, but it was me. It was quite an entrance. I got out of the car, and everyone started applauding. I didn’t know if it was for my driving skills or just for the fact that I’d finally got there.

  Within a few minutes, I was at the altar. I got married in jeans and a long tuxedo coat and cowboy boots. Sharon was wearing a pretty flowered wedding dress. She had Cheryl stand up with her, and I had my manager, Chip Peay, as my best man. Sharon’s sisters Rosie and Melissa were bridesmaids, and my groomsmen were Jerry Douglas and my bass player and road manager Jesse Chambers.

  The ceremony was on the front porch of the mansion. It was about as laid-back as you could get, but we took our vows as serious as any oath on God’s earth. We’ve been husband and wife thirty-two years now, and we’re shooting for thirty-two more. You know how at some weddings the bride lights a candle and then the groom lights a candle and then they take the two candles and they light one candle together? Well, at our ceremony, I sang a song to Sharon, she sang a song to me, and then we sang a song together. It was a beautiful moment, signifying our love and new life together. Our wedding day was August 4, 1981, and we couldn’t have picked a hotter day. It was so daggone hot that the cake melted. The lady who made it was from our church, and she worked so hard in the kitchen baking that triple-decker. The reception was outside, where it was a hundred degrees in the shade, and the cake made it to the table in pieces. The baker was devastated, but the cake served a purpose. It was the only thing Sharon and I got to eat. By the time we got done picking and singing, all the food was gone!

  My old bluegrass buddies came to help us celebrate, Jerry, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, and my whole band. The party went for three hours straight. . I had made a special request for Bill Monroe to join us for our special day—and to remember to bring his mandolin. So he did, and he showed up dressed to the nines in his white linen suit and his famous white Stetson.

  The best part came when he set his mandolin down and got up and buck-danced with our dear friend Beverly Cotton. Apart from the ceremony, I’d have to say that was the highlight of our wedding, to see him dancing and having so much fun.

  Epic released the album Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine in June 1981. Now they were waiting on me to go on the road to promote it. I needed to put together a band and start touring.

  A record company ain’t no charity organization. The labels sign you up to a contract on their faith in your potential, but they need some early returns on their investment before they loan you any money. We were on the road when the album’s first single, “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’,” climbed into the top twenty on Billboard’s country chart, taking us all by surprise. We knew we were offering something new, but the rest was up to the marketplace. Then Epic released another single, “You May See Me Walkin’.” It broke into the top ten. I couldn’t believe it.

  The public reception of the album’s title track, “Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine,” was another nice surprise. The crowd sang along to every word, and you’d see couples holding hands and swaying in their seats. Sonny Throckmorton had written a sad and pretty tune, and it really spoke to people. I don’t play that song much anymore, just once in a while when I play with a full orchestra. It still strikes a chord with audiences.

  Early on, “Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine” was a signature song for me. And the funny thing was, it never g
ot released as a single, as much as I wanted it to be. I remember calling Joe Casey, my contact at Epic who chose which songs to release as singles. I told him the song ought to be a sure-fire hit considering the audience reaction when we played it. He thought it was a little soft, and that “Crying My Heart Out over You” ought to be the next single. I wasn’t so sure. “Trust me on this,” he said. “It’s a smash.” And boy was he right.

  It went straight to the top. I called Joe to say thanks and told him to keep on picking those singles he wanted, ’cause he sure knew what he was doing. Well, now I had my first number-one country record, and it was a dream come true. Wow, what a feeling! ’Course, my life would never be the same again.

  Once we started seeing that radio and record sales were picking up, Epic really got behind us. We got more confidence as a band, more comfortable with each other, and we were getting encores at our shows. We started opening up for major stars like the Statler Brothers, Barbara Mandrell, and Marty Robbins. We were playing at big venues for a whole new audience. After my second number-one record, a remake of Webb Pierce’s “I Don’t Care,” I started headlining my own shows.

  Everything happened so fast I could barely take it all in. It felt like getting shot out of a cannon and landing in the spotlight. I tried not to blink and counted my blessings. I was just happy that radio was playing traditional country music again, and was glad some of it was mine.

  ’Course, my new career in mainstream country didn’t make everybody happy. It angered a lot of bluegrassers, and some of ’em probably never forgave me. But I knew I had to follow this path. I’ve tried not to let the naysayers bother me. Never really had time to dwell on that, and besides, the people I really cared about were still behind me.

  When I had my first number-one record, I remember calling my folks on the phone. Dad didn’t pretend to know much about the country charts, but he sure was tickled that my version of an old Flatt & Scruggs song was all over the radio, and he liked the fact that I was still showing my bluegrass roots. But what got him most excited was when I told him I’d gotten to meet one of his favorite country stars, Merle Travis, the finger-picking guru guitar master from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, who could make a Martin D-28 sound as big as a coal truck. Dad’s favorite Merle song was “Dark as a Dungeon,” and he loved to sing and pick “Nine Pound Hammer” on his Martin guitar. Dad was as giddy as a Justin Bieber fan, and he asked, “Well, Son, what’d he say to you?”

  I told him how friendly and down-home Merle was to talk with, how he knew I was from the coal-mining area of eastern Kentucky, and how he’d thanked me for recording his songs “Sweet Temptation” and “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed.” That thrilled Dad to pieces, ’cause he idolized Merle and had such respect for his singing, songwriting, and musicianship. Having a hit single was nice and all, but meeting Merle Travis, well, that was about as good as it got in Dad’s book.

  When Mom got on the phone, she started crying and praising the Lord. “Son, you know who got you here, don’t you?” “Yes, Mama. Jesus did.”

  “Don’t you ever forget Him. Always put Him first in your life. He’ll always bless you and take care of you.”

  I knew she was right. And I knew I wanted to honor God in everything I did. My mother was such a powerful prayer warrior. She knew how to pray, and she knew how to believe in what she prayed for. That’s as important as praying: If you don’t believe, you won’t receive. She’d prayed for me all my life. She prayed that God would make my gift of music a blessing to others and that Jesus would get the Glory for it, not me. I don’t think the rest of us could hardly believe the boy from Brushy Creek had finally started to make it in Music City, but Mama sure did!

  What a long strange trip it had been from the top of a soda-pop cooler in Butler’s Grocery store, and the journey was just getting started.

  Chapter 16

  OPRYLAND

  Dread not the things that are ahead,

  the burdens great, the sinking sands,

  The thorns that over the path are spread,

  God holds the future in His hands.

  —“God Holds the Future in His Hands,” by the Monroe Brothers, 1936

  Things got crazy pretty dang quick, and it happened on a large scale. I was getting a crash course in the music business, and I made sure to pay attention. We’d come to a city somewhere that I’d never been before, and we’d have a sell-out show. It was hard to believe all those people in the seats were there to see me. I’d look out from the stage at all those faces and think, How’d y’all even know I was coming?

  This experience opened my eyes to the incredible reach of radio and to what a powerful medium it was, at least at the time. With radio and promotion, the market was primed and ready for us ahead of every gig. People knew the songs and sang along with me. It was like you were friends with thousands of strangers, all because of the music. You never forget that sense of community. They all wanted to help this ol’ country boy.

  Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine cost fifty thousand dollars to make, a piddly sum compared to standard production budgets in Nashville. All I’d wanted to do was make a record with good songs that I wanted to sing and, hopefully, people would want to hear. Boy, did they ever. Rick Blackburn guessed it’d sell maybe fifty thousand copies at the most, but it sold more than five hundred thousand. And the music critics came to my side and cheered me on, too, ’cause I was sort of a young renegade waging battle to bring back the hard-core, traditional country sound.

  The success of the record was a nice surprise for the executives at Epic, and it was a shock to the industry. It was new territory for me, and I felt like a pioneer. I got pitchforked to the top of the heap, and I came out of the pile fighting for my music and my beliefs both. It’s been a whirlwind ever since. Success is a tricky business, and it can fool you at every turn. I was lucky I had Sharon to keep me grounded while my career took off. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d have survived without her. See, it wasn’t till after we married that I started really trying to live my Christian faith every day—the best I could, anyhow—and it couldn’t have come at a better time. When the Lord opened those doors for me in Nashville, I needed to be focused on Jesus, not myself, and to walk as best I could through the miry clay of Music Row.

  I’d been attending services with the Whites at Holiday Heights Baptist Church, their little church in Hendersonville, Tennessee. One night the preacher was talking about this one simple truth: Christ alive in us is the hope of Glory. His words hit like a ray of heavenly light in a Bible picture card, breaking through the confusion I had about my faith. Imagine, Christ living His life in me and through me!? The preacher made me think about my situation, and the spiritual journey I’d been on since I was a boy.

  I’d grown up in the old Free Will Baptist faith, where they believed that you could lose your salvation if you didn’t live right, and that you could keep it if you did all the right things. I thought, “Where is the free will in that?” I didn’t like the way that tasted. It felt like it wasn’t the whole Gospel, ’cause it didn’t square up with all the Scripture, in which Jesus said He’d never leave us or forsake us.

  I had long doubted the salvation I experienced at the revival when I was thirteen. For years, I thought God was mad at me. I didn’t talk to God for a long time.

  The preaching I heard at Holiday Heights helped me finally understand. My salvation was a done deal. I’d made my commitment to Christ and He had not forgotten it. I realized He wasn’t mad at me. I had to understand that salvation is not about what we do or don’t do. It’s about His grace and sacrifice on the Cross, and about the fact that no matter what, Jesus loves me and lives in me. I rededicated my life to the Lord at Holiday Heights. I was baptized and, along with Sharon, finally started my walk of faith. It’s easier for two to walk together than one alone. One can help the other. And we did.

  Part of that walk of faith meant taking stands on morality and worldly things. I was a public figure, and I knew that k
ind of publicity and media exposure made you into a role model whether you were ready or not, especially when it came to younger people. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

  I remember the first time Country Music magazine ran a cover story on me. It had a huge national readership—it’s like Rolling Stone for country music fans. I was leafing through the pages when I got to the classifieds in the back. I couldn’t believe how crude some of the ads were! There were people you could call on phone-sex hotlines, lewd photos you could order, and all kind of filth for sale. It bothered me.

  I phoned the head editor of the magazine in New York and asked him what all this stuff had to do with country music, family values, and the Grand Ole Opry. He was nice and polite and said I had a good point. I think for a while he made a concerted effort to cut back on some of the more suggestive ads.

  Maybe I was a little starchy or square, but I didn’t care. Nowadays, of course, kids see much worse things on TV and the Internet.

  I knew that if I felt that way, others did, too—only they didn’t have a say in it. I decided I was gonna speak up for those folks and myself. I felt the same way about the music I was making. I tried to find songs that could reflect my beliefs about what was proper and morally right. Otherwise, I’d be selling a lie. I believe traditional music and traditional values go hand in hand. To me, traditional country music has a wholesomeness and decency that’s part of our common heritage and represents everything we’re about as a people.

  In the tradition I came out of, there were cheating and drinking songs, but there was a price to pay for sinning. When Kitty Wells sang about those things, she sang about it in a way that let you know she thought it was wrong. Kitty always had strong morals in her material. So did so many of the greats, from Roy Acuff right down the line. I wasn’t trying to be self-righteous, but I just felt like there was an audience for clean country music, and a place on the radio for good songs if they were done right. I figured I could sing about some other things that would interest people, things like faith and love and honor and a relationship with God.