Despite building a career on adaptability, Ricky Skaggs has never tried to be anyone other than himself. That approach has worked out beautifully for the Country Music Hall of Fame member, and he has the number-one hits (12), Grammys (15), and Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Awards (eight each) to prove it. Today, we’re celebrating the countless achievements of Rickie Lee Skaggs in honor of his 72nd birthday.
Born in the small mountain town of Cordell, Kentucky, on this day (July 18) in 1954, Skaggs grew up on a steady diet of bluegrass and gospel. He received his first mandolin from his parents at age five.
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In seemingly no time, the little boy had mastered the instrument enough to bring it to the town grocery store on weekends, where he would sit on the counter beside the Coca-Cola cooler and pick out tunes for change.
“The money was handy, but I’d have played if there weren’t a soul around,” Skaggs once wrote. “The music fed something deep inside me.”
How Bill Monroe Discovered Ricky Skaggs
He had only been playing the mandolin for less than a year when the “Father of Bluegrass” himself came to town.
After playing the first couple of songs from his set, Bill Monroe heard some of “Little Ricky Skaggs’” admirers chanting his name in the crowd. So Monroe invited the 6-year-old onstage, handed the child his own mandolin, and marveled as Skaggs played a bluegrass hit called “Ruby”.
The crowd went wild, and Skaggs had his first taste of performing for a large audience. The following year, he shared a stage with the iconic bluegrass duo Flatt & Scruggs on a country music variety TV show.
As a teenager, Skaggs met fellow Kentucky guitarist Keith Whitley. They began playing together, and in 1970, both earned a spot opening for bluegrass artist Ralph Stanley. Seeing what the two young musicians could do, Stanley subsequently invited them to join his band, the Clinch Mountain Boys.
More Bands
Ricky Skaggs, famously dubbed the “Kentucky Traveler,” would join a couple more bluegrass bands before founding his own, Boone Creek, in 1976, which claimed Jerry Douglas and Vince Gill as members.
The following year, he replaced Rodney Crowell in Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band. In addition to contributing harmony vocals, mandolin, and fiddle, Skaggs also wrote the arrangements for Harris’s 1980 bluegrass-roots album Roses in the Snow.
Flying Solo
In 1981, Ricky Skaggs produced and released his breakthrough solo album, Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine.
Foregoing the banjo in favor of drums and electric bass, Skaggs created something that appealed to bluegrass purists and mainstream country fans alike. The album yielded four charting singles, including back-to-back number-one hits in “Crying My Heart Out Over You” and “I Don’t Care”.
The following year, Skaggs peaked at number one on the country albums chart with Highways & Heartaches, which also produced three additional chart-topping singles.
The Kentucky-born artist dominated the 1980s, even winning the CMA’s coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1985. Even when rock and pop influences began creeping into the country charts during the ’90s, Skaggs continued to draw crowds. In 1997, he formed his own Skaggs Family label.
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