< Ricky Skaggs Sings Songs Of His Childhood

Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

Heard on All Things Considered

September 18, 2009 - MELISSA BLOCK, host:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

(Soundbite of music)

BLOCK: Ricky Skaggs, do you remember a time when you were not holding a string instrument in your hands?

Mr. RICKY SKAGGS (Musician): Barely.

(Soundbite of song, “Foggy River”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) Your love is colder than a foggy river flowing o'er a heart of stone.

BLOCK: Ricky Skaggs has been making music for 50 years now. He played with bluegrass great Ralph Stanley when he was still in his teens, went on to have a streak of country hits, then went back to bluegrass. And now, he's returned to the songs he learned from his father as a young boy in eastern Kentucky.

Ricky Skaggs is solo on his new CD, “Songs My Dad Loved,” doing all the vocals and playing all the instruments: fiddles, banjo, piano, lots more.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. SKAGGS: My dad bought a mandolin for me when I was five. He came in. He was a construction welder, and so he traveled quite a bit. And came in one Saturday morning and this little mandolin was in my bed when I woke up.

BLOCK: In your bed with you.

Mr. SKAGGS: In the bed. And so I woke up and opened it up and looked in there, and there was this little, teeny, tiny mandolin, and I just fell in love with wood and strings. It just - I mean, it was like the greatest gift I could have gotten.

So he showed me three chords: G, C and D, the basic Mel Bay way, you know, and so that was it. And he got snowed in at a job up in Lima, Ohio, and couldn't get home for a couple of weeks. And so, when he came back home, I was singing and changing keys and playing and all that, and it just really, really got him so excited he went out and bought a guitar. You know, he didn't even have a guitar at the house at the time.

BLOCK: So he knew that, well, if Ricky's interested, I'd better pick up a guitar then.

Mr. SKAGGS: That's right.

BLOCK: What do you think inspired him to buy you that mandolin when you were five years old?

Mr. SKAGGS: Well, there was a real reason. He and my uncle, his brother, his brother got killed in World War II, and they had a little brother's duet when they were about 15, 16 years old, and they played just locally. You know, they never traveled and went anywhere, but they played and sang together. My dad played guitar and sang lead, and my uncle played mandolin and sung tenor.

And when he passed away, boy, my dad just - it was a real blow to my father, you know, because that was not only his real blood brother but his singing partner, you know. And my dad just kind of made one of those inner vows, I think, that if I ever have a son that shows, you know, any kind of, you know, interest in music, I'm going to buy him a mandolin. He had a purpose in his heart that he wanted me to play the mandolin.

BLOCK: Ricky, I want to do a little audio time travel with you here.

(Soundbite of television program, “Flatt & Scruggs”)

Mr. LESTER FLATT: Come back over here just a minute. Let's tell all these folks your name. You want to tell them? All right.

Mr. SKAGGS: My name is Ricky Skaggs.

Mr. FLATT: Ricky Skaggs, and you're how old?

Mr. SKAGGS: Seven years old.

Mr. FLATT: Seven years old. You're originally from up about…

BLOCK: Ricky, that takes you back. That's you on the “Flatt & Scruggs” TV show. That's you with Lester Flatt.

Mr. SKAGGS: Yeah.

BLOCK: He gets a little excited. He calls you Ricky Skraggs, maybe thinking about his pal, Earl Scruggs there.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SKAGGS: Skraggs and Scruggs.

BLOCK: And you're up there. We should describe this. You're up there. You've got a little string tie on. Your hair's slicked back. You're probably elbow-high. You've got your mandolin, and you look scared to death.

Mr. SKAGGS: I was confident, though. I might have looked scared, but I knew what I was supposed to do.

(Soundbite of music)

BLOCK: And you come back. You come back later in the show and you sing…

Mr. SKAGGS: “Ruby,” - are you mad at your man at seven years old.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of song, “Ruby”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) Ruby, Ruby, honey, are you mad at your man?

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of applause)

Mr. FLATT: Oh, that's real fine, Ricky, thank you so much. And you heard…

Mr. SKAGGS: I wish I could sing that high again.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SKAGGS: I can't quite get up to those notes anymore, but that was - I mean, let's see, that's almost 50 years ago.

BLOCK: Yeah.

Mr. SKAGGS: That's hard to believe. When you listen to those things, they really take you back. And here again, you know, we're talking about my dad. He is the very - he is the center of this thing. He is the one that made this happen, you know.

BLOCK: What did he do?

Mr. SKAGGS: Well, he just had this knack for knowing where to be at the right place, at the right time. I mean, he just had - he had a quality about him that he was so confident as a person. He knew who he was, but he was such a friendly person. He's always had his hand out: Hi, I'm Holbert(ph) Skaggs, you know, and this is my boy, Ricky, you know. And he had made friends with the backstage guard at the Opry, when it was down at the old Ryman downtown.

BLOCK: In Nashville.

Mr. SKAGGS: Yeah, in Nashville, and Mr. Bell(ph) was the backstage guard, and so he had made friends with him somehow. I don't know if they traded pocket knives or exactly what and what they did. But anyway, they let me backstage, and I was back there, me and my dad, you know, was back there just kind of playing.

I had my mandolin out, and I was playing something, and Earl Scruggs walks by. He said, that's your boy? Yes, sir, it is. Well, why don't you - he's really good. Why don't you bring him down for an audition for our television show next week? And that's how it happened.

(Soundbite of music)

BLOCK: The new CD with these songs from your father, on the songs where you're singing close harmony with yourself, say, “What is a Home Without Love?,” would you be hearing your dad's voice as you were doing that?

(Soundbite of song, “What is a Home Without Love?”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) What is a home without a baby?

Mr. SKAGGS: He was a really great singer and guitar player, and he could have gone on, probably, and been, you know, a known singer, you know, and could have made records and stuff. But he knew that if he did, he would have to leave the family to do it.

(Soundbite of song, “What is a Home Without Love?”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) …to kiss you each night at the door.

BLOCK: Ricky, if you were singing this with your dad, he'd have the bottom part, and you'd be up there, and that's a third?

Mr. SKAGGS: A third, yeah. Actually, a third, and if you listen right through here, this is the old Monroe style.

(Soundbite of song, “What is a Home Without Love?”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) You may have wealth and its pleasure, but what is a home without love?

BLOCK: When they come together.

Mr. SKAGGS: Yeah, where they come together. Isn't that the coolest thing? You know, nobody sings like that anymore. You know, that's just so mountain and so cool. You know, I love that. And so, I really wanted this generation to kind of hear that.

BLOCK: Ricky Skaggs, thanks for coming in.

Mr. SKAGGS: Thanks, Melissa. It's always a pleasure to be with you.

(Soundbite of song, “God Holds the Future in His Hands”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) He is your friend. He holds the future in his hand.

BLOCK: And you can hear songs from Ricky Skaggs' new solo album, “Songs My Dad Loved,” at nprmusic.org.

(Soundbite of song, “God Holds the Future in His Hands”)

Mr. SKAGGS: (Singing) What e'er may come, he bends above to guide his children safely home. God holds the future in his hands, and every heart he understands, on him depends. He is your friend. God holds the future in his hands.

BLOCK: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.