by Ricky Skaggs
Around that time, I saw Dolly and told her what had happened. She went through the roof, she was so upset. She said, “Let me take care of this!” Somehow she stood up to RCA and got it all worked out where in exchange for her singing on my record, I’d sing on one of her pop records later on, which I did.
This all happened just in the nick of time. We were able to restore Dolly’s vocals to the master just before it went to the pressing plant. Thanks, Dolly—I still owe you one. Even before this situation finally got cleared up, though, there still wasn’t enough material for a full album. We had to get in the studio and knock out a few more songs.
We’d been featuring a few bluegrass tunes on the road, “Uncle Pen” and “Keep a Memory,” and I knew we could cut those without much fuss. We got in the studio and soon we had our third album, Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown.
The title track was the Stanley Brothers song that Keith and I sang together on our first album. This time, I sang solo and overdubbed my own harmonies, and it went to number one. Sharon and Cheryl sang harmony on my next single, “Honey (Open That Door),” a cover of the Webb Pierce record that Hank DeVito had put on a mix tape for me years ago when we were in the Hot Band together. It also went to number one! One of my heroes, Albert Lee, played the guitar solo for me, and Buck White laid down a red-hot piano solo, too. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.
There was some discussion at Epic as to what to release as the third single. I remember one day I was listening to Bob Kingsley’s American Country Countdown show on the radio. He was talking about the hits from the album that had already been released. He said, “I think there’s another hit on this record. It’s Ricky’s version of the old Bill Monroe classic ‘Uncle Pen.’” Then he played it on his show! It gave me chill bumps. I thought, Could it really be? Could this be a number-one country hit? Bob Kingsley thinks so!
That gave me the courage to go talk to Joe Casey, the head of radio for Epic. He was the guy you wanted in your corner fighting for your singles. Joe was skeptical. “I don’t think so. It’s way too bluegrass.” I knew he was right to a certain extent, but what was different now was my track record: eight number-one singles, some champions at radio stations, and a great listener fan base out there. “Let’s try it,” I said. I knew it’d be risky having a bluegrass-sounding release that was different from my other singles. I told him I’d take full responsibility if it tanked. Joe said he’d hold me to that. Lucky for me, it went to the top of the charts. “Uncle Pen” was my third number-one single from my third Epic album. It was also my fourth number one that had originally been recorded as a bluegrass song.
In those days, I’d see Mr. Monroe around, either at the Opry or at some event somewhere, and he was always supportive and complimentary. He’d encourage me and say in his customary few words, “You’re doing a fine job. You’re keeping bluegrass in your music.” It thrilled me to hear him say that. He was appreciative, and he recognized what I’d preserved, not what I’d thrown out. I’d be thinking, Mr. Monroe’s happy with what I’m doing! I’m still in the bluegrass family!
When “Uncle Pen” came out as a single, I didn’t see Mr. Monroe for a while, and I wondered how he’d react to drums and piano and a steel guitar solo on one of his signature tunes. Well, one night at the Opry, I got my answer. He walked over and said, “Ricky, you can record all my songs if you want to. I got a powerful check on that ‘Uncle Pen’ you did.” It was sort of tongue-in-cheek, you know, his way of saying he was fine with it. I knew he didn’t care for drums and electric instruments in his band, but I don’t think he minded ’em in my band, and he sure didn’t mind getting the royalties!
’Course, there was a big difference between my countrified cover versions and the real thing. There were bluegrass overtones in my music, especially the singing, but it wasn’t bluegrass. It was an homage. People would say, “I love your bluegrass,” and I’d tell ’em, “Thank you, but if you really want to hear some real bluegrass, you should listen to Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers.”
During shows, I tried to build up bluegrass and educate the audience as much as I could. I’d ask, “How many folks out there ever heard of the Stanley Brothers? How ’bout Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass?” I’d talk about the history of the high, lonesome sound and play a song to help illustrate. Whenever we were on the same show, I’d invite Mr. Monroe to sit in on our set for a few songs. I wanted my audience to know who he was, and I wanted to share the spotlight with my hero. He was a hoot, and he loved the attention. I got to see what a consummate showman he was, and how funny he could be. He was past seventy and slowing down, but we’d gotten close enough to where he felt free to loosen up around me.
One time in Florida, I introduced him and he walked across the stage wearing these crazy-looking glasses fitted with penlights beaming on the side. It was a total surprise. He looked like something from another planet, but he still had his Bill Monroe hat on. The audience was roaring, and he was a perfect straight man playing right along with the joke with a classic What’s all the fuss about? look. Sometimes we’d be singing together and he’d take off his hat and put it on my big ol’ hairy head.
That playfulness was another side of Monroe that wasn’t too well known. He had comedy in him if you could bring it out. He was a good dancer, too. If Monroe was feeling his oats, he’d show off his Kentucky back-step and bring the house down. It looked like hillbilly break dancing, feet facing forward but body goin’ backward. Back in the ’30s, he and Charlie used to dance on the WLS National Barn Dance broadcast in Chicago.
During my country heyday, I was mostly playing rhythm guitar. I’d gotten away from mandolin, ’cept for a couple tunes in the show. One time I walked into Mr. Bill’s dressing room at the Opry, and he was resting on a couch with his mandolin next to him in its open case. I couldn’t resist. I asked if I could play the legendary Loar, and he said go right ahead! I hadn’t played it since I was six years old. Lord. When I picked up the mandolin—which, you have to remember, was almost as old as he was—it was like holding a living, breathing thing. In all their years together, he’d endowed that wood and steel with an aura that I could feel. It was his partner in life.
It felt and sounded so good. I went up and down the neck playing these little licks. I kept at it for a good while and finally laid it back in the case. He looked at me and said, “Did you find anywhere on that mandolin where it didn’t sound good?” He was bragging on his precious ol’ mandolin, and let me tell you, he had a right to. “No, sir,” I told him. “It sounded great on every inch of it.” I got Mr. Monroe in the studio for my next album, Country Boy, ’cause I wanted him to play mandolin on our rendition of his classic “Wheel Hoss.” We had to overdub his part on the track we’d already cut, something he wasn’t used to doing. To make him comfortable, I took out the piano and lowered the drums and cranked up the acoustic guitar in the mix he heard on his headphones, and he nailed it in the first few takes.
That record got me a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental. I gave my Grammy to Mr. Monroe, because he hadn’t yet won a Grammy, and I thought he deserved one. He was thrilled to death, but the thrill was mine to get to bless him that way. I loved him more than any award. Here was a man who started a whole new genre of music and had never been properly honored for it. I wanted my fans to know he was cool. It didn’t matter what I was doing; I wanted to include him. Even in a music video.
I remember planning the video shoot for the “Country Boy” single. In the video, I played a hayseed-turned-yuppie lawyer in New York City. The director, Martin Kahan, said he wanted to get an old guy to play the part of my grandpa. That gave me an idea, and I said, “Hey, how ’bout let’s get Bill Monroe to play my Uncle Pen!” I explained about the song’s bluegrass origins and how Monroe would be perfect as a cranky old cuss in the big city, chewing me out ’cause he thinks I’ve gotten above my raisin’. Martin asked, “Can he act?” and I said, “Sure. He’ll do anything you tell him.” I fibbed a little on that.
The day of the shoot, we took a limousine to the hotel to get Mr. Bill, and he was there in his work pants, just as the director had asked him to be. “I don’t know why I’m dressed like I’m ready to go out and work on the farm,” he said. “This is for television, ain’t it? You’ve gotta dress up for that.”
He was used to sporting a suit and tie to perform. I explained that he was acting a part, and that we’d be starring in a little skit built around the song, for broadcast on a special channel on TV. Music video was a new format in the 1980s, and ol’ Bill had been around since the days of vaudeville. Once he got the concept, though, he went right with it.
You might even say he stole the show. I mean, I had fun hamming it up, but the real star was Mr. Monroe as Uncle Pen. He laid down his Kentucky back-step like a pro, and it really impressed those break dancers. They said, “Man, that is a cold-blooded step!” Same with the female dancers on the set. They were classically trained, but Mr. Bill really showed ’em a thing or two! In between the filming, he was throwing ’em over his shoulder and dancing up a storm with these gals. They loved him!
This video turned out to be a winner all the way around. There was even a cameo from the city’s mayor, Ed Koch. He played a New York cab driver chomping on a bagel and lip-synching, “I’m just a country boy, country boy at heart.” He was perfect. The “Country Boy” video was the first time a lot of people in my generation had ever seen or heard of Bill Monroe. It gave him a chance to get his feet wet in the pop-culture mainstream, and he made a real splash. It was the second video that VH1 broadcast when it first went on the air, and it’s now sort of a classic. CMT still airs it once in a while.
My favorite moment during the shoot was when we took a lunch break and went to Chinatown. Jerry Rivers, the fiddle player for Hank Williams, was helping out as Bill’s wrangler on the trip, and he found us a Chinese restaurant. He ordered Bill some chicken and vegetables, and Bill told the waitress to make sure and fry the chicken until it was real done to get all the juice out of it. He’d had food poisoning too many times from uncooked chicken he’d eaten in diners on the road.
She brought him a plate and set it down and was walking away when Bill hollered at her, “Ma’am, ma’am, you got any bread?” She came back to the table and smiled as polite as could be and said, “No have bread, only rice.” Well, Bill couldn’t believe he couldn’t get a biscuit or dinner roll or even a slice of Wonder bread. He got as mad and grumpy as Uncle Pen does in the video. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of,” he said. “A restaurant that ain’t got no bread! That ain’t no part of nothing right there.”
That would have been a great scene to get in the video.
From shooting videos to making records to playing shows, I was busy. As my dad used to say, busy as a one-eyed cat watching two rat holes. But it was a different kind of busy from my days as a sideman. Now it was me calling the shots and dealing with the repercussions, and the stress was double. I was realizing what Ralph and Emmy and other bandleaders had to deal with—lots of new responsibilities, and lots of new things to worry about.
Thing was, I had only myself to blame. The reason I had so much on my plate was that I’d put it there, especially when I demanded to be my own producer. Now, it was worth any headaches for the artistic freedom to control what I put my name on, but it also meant a lot more responsibility. There was no way around that. If a record didn’t succeed, the only one to take the heat was me. I also had a lot of extra chores. I had to find the right songs, have enough quality material for a full album, plan all the recording sessions beforehand, and then go in to the studio to cut the tracks and do the overdubs. And always on a deadline . . .
On top of all of that, I had to be out on the road as much as possible. I couldn’t afford to miss shows, no matter how much I’d rather camp out in the studio. Ticket sales are how most artists make money to cover their expenses, everything from the bus payments and the salaries of the band and office staff to the mortgage and groceries.
Whenever I was off the road, there was always a project to work on—a video, a record, or a guest host slot on a TV show like Nashville Now, where I invited Ralph Stanley on as a featured performer. There was always something to finish up on or something new to start.
Because of these commitments, I only got up to Kentucky to see my folks a couple times a year. Mom and Dad didn’t wanna uproot themselves and move to the big city where I was, and I’d never have asked them to do that. Brushy was where their kin and neighbors and church was. But I sure missed ’em, and I wished they coulda seen their grandkids more.
I knew my folks were proud of me, and that’s what mattered most. Same with my brothers and sister. For a while, my younger brother Gary worked on my road crew. It was a tough job, with lots of late nights and early mornings and lots of heavy lifting, but he was thankful to have the work, and I was glad to have him. Gary was always happy for my success and always rooting for his brother, same as all my siblings.
Whenever our tour hit the West Coast, my big sister Linda would come to our show and drop by backstage and say hello, and we’d get to catch up for a while. She had moved to the San Jose area because she had multiple sclerosis and the California weather was much better for her health. It was always good to get to visit with her. She passed away last year, and we miss her dearly.
My older brother Garold has always been as proud of me as he could be. He knew that having some hit records hadn’t changed me. I was the same kid brother he’d grown up running the woods and jumping creeks and skinning his knees with. He’s a hunter and an outdoorsman, and he always will be. You know, Garold recently got remarried, and I drove up to Kentucky for the wedding. Turns out that his bride, Janie Fyffe, was Linda’s best friend from their school years, and it was great to get to see the happy couple. Gary was there, too; he also lives in Kentucky with his wife, Regina. It was a nice family reunion.
At the time, staying focused on my career seemed worth the sacrifices. I was making hay while the sun was shining, as the saying goes. There was no telling how long that sun would last. Being a full-time performer, I was a part-time dad, but I made the most of whatever time the kids and I had together. I got to take Mandy and Andrew on the road with me in the summer when they were out of school. They got to see firsthand what their dad did for a living. Plus, they got to see a lot of the world.
It was really great when Mandy and Andrew got old enough to travel with me on the road. After the divorce, I still tried to be the best dad I could, and spend some quality time with the kids. I’d take them on tour with me during their summer vacations, and so we got to see Disneyland and some of the cool theme parks whenever our shows were nearby.
It was like a big caravan back in those days. We’d pull the buses into a park somewhere by a river or creek and set up camp for the night. We’d have a big cookout and we’d fish and we’d have fun just goofing around. The guys in the band would string up a volleyball net, and we’d pick teams and play games.
Me and the kids would stay up late and eat popcorn and watch movies on the VCR. They just loved sleeping on the bus; that was a big deal for them. They had a really good time, and I think they got a good education out there on the road. It really enlarged their view of the world. Mandy got to see Scotland with me on my UK tour in ’86. They learned to appreciate other places and other people.
They enjoyed the shows, too, all the excitement and energy that comes from performing for big crowds. Sometimes Andrew would bring my fiddle or mandolin on stage when it was
time for me to switch instruments. He was my little roadie, helping out as best he could. Now, Mandy, she was still so shy she wouldn’t dare to walk out on that stage in front of all those people, bless her heart!
It was a lot of fun, and it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I was working 250 show dates a year, with a new record to promote every tour. I probably spent way too much time on the road and in the studio, trying to keep all the plates spinning. Sharon and I always tried to make the best of our life together. We had to schedule times to get away, alone. Sometimes, if one of us wasn’t working, she or I would join the other one on the road just so we could be together. At the same time my career was taking off, the Whites were starting to enjoy a lot of success. Once in a while they’d tour with me as my opening act, and that was wonderful, because we were together all the time. We were “making it,” and I guess we bought into the idea that the busier we were, the more successful we were.
On March 5, 1984, our daughter Molly was born. It was such a watershed moment for Sharon, and it was doubly exciting for me, not just to be a father again but to see how excited Sharon was to have her first child. It really changed our perspective and helped us slow down and take stock of our lives.
Sharon’s view of success started to change when she had Molly. She had seen how Cheryl’s life had changed when she had her daughter Rachel. I believe in the back of Sharon’s mind, she was thinking maybe it was time for her to be a mother, too. We didn’t do anything to stop it but just prayed for God’s perfect timing.
Sharon didn’t want us to have to raise Molly on the road, where things can be unscheduled and inconsistent. She wanted Molly to sleep in her own bed every night. Sharon started touring less. I went home whenever I could. And we hired a wonderful Christian couple named Earl and Sheila Green to be with Molly when we couldn’t be.
The Greens were sort of like another set of grandparents for our children. But they did so much more than care for the kids. Earl took care of our yard and the house repairs like our home was a fancy estate. And Sheila did the laundry and housekeeping chores. Earl had served time in Folsom Prison, but he’d been rehabilitated and we saw a gentleness in his heart. He was a humble and hardworking person, and he was good to our children.