Ricky Skaggs believes there's soon going to be a turning point in country music taking the genre back to its roots.
The country and bluegrass legend, who's set to play Magic Springs Theme and Water Park's Timberwood Amphitheater July 13, has been touring since he was 15. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2018, Skaggs has seen many changes in the music industry over the course of his career.
"Country music has left the house. It wasn't run off, but there's just a lot of elements that have no semblance whatsoever of what country music is," he told The Sentinel-Record in a recent phone interview. "I know how Vince (Gill) feels about it... We're just going to keep doing what we're doing.
"Country music has changed quite a bit, but I really believe the stage is set for someone to come along who is really into country music to really say something without having to put a rap track over it."
Skaggs' musical journey began at 3 years old singing with his parents.
"My mom would sing around the house and I would sing her part -- she was a tenor -- whenever my dad would sing," he said. "She told my dad I had been singing around the house so they started using me when they would sing at church. They'd sit me up on the pulpit.
"So at the time, Dad was working in Lima, Ohio, as a welder, and early one Saturday morning he came home with a mandolin. So he came in the bedroom and put this little mandolin in the bed with me and I've just been playing it ever since. He showed me three chords."
Skaggs and his father would play music together in the evenings. Growing up, he said he had a lot of time to practice the mandolin when he wasn't in school. The instrument became an integral part of his life early on and his community took notice of his talents.
"It became sort of a security blanket to me," he said. "Some kids carry a blanket around, I had a little red wagon and carried my mandolin around in it. It would bounce all around and I was terrible to that little mandolin, but I loved it.
"When I was 6 years old, I got to play with Mr. (Bill) Monroe. He had come to a high school close to where we lived and some of the neighbors there that had heard me singing in church or wherever convinced him to get me up on stage. I played a song 'Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?' which wasn't real appropriate for a little 6 or 7 year old. But I loved the song, so that's what we did. That next year I was on Flatt & Scruggs' TV show."
Skaggs said in September a new documentary series will premiere on PBS which will outline the history of country music.
"Ken Burns just finished an 8-year project on the history of country music and it's amazing," he said. "It premieres Sept. 15, on a Sunday, and it will continue for eight Sundays in a row. I think it will absolutely turn a lot of these young kids toward traditional country music. And because it had to have somewhere to end, it ends at 1996. That's the year Bill Monroe died. I got out of country music in 1997 and started my label and really started doing more bluegrass."
Bluegrass is another genre he believes has strayed from its roots, though there are some new faces and young fans with an appreciation for the traditional elements of the genre. His band, Kentucky Thunder, even boasts a few of those new faces.
"One of the guys has been with me for 24 years; the rest have been in the band between 2 and 4 years," he said. "For the most part, we've got a lot of young guys who are real energetic and they play like nothing else. I think the people that come out in Hot Springs are really going to love the energy of these guys' ability."
Local on 06/23/2019