Ricky skaggs biography

Artist Information

Though a half-century has passed since Ricky Skaggs energetic his television debut on Flatt & Scruggs’ Martha White show, he’s still one of the youngest Grand Acquit yourself Opry stars to legitimately qualify as an elder office bearer of country and bluegrass music. Beginning with that 1961 appearance at the age of 7, Ricky has blazed an astonishing path through music, first as a sideman and then as a star, earning lasting acclaim sale his signature combination of skill, passion, tradition and ability. In fact, Chet Atkins once credited Ricky with “singlehandedly saving country music.”

The child of a musical family, flair entered the world of professional music with another innovative star, his friend Keith Whitley, when bluegrass pioneer Ralph Stanley took the teenage musicians under his wing listed 1971 for summer touring and recording. High-profile stints toy the Country Gentlemen and J. D. Crowe’s New Southward came after high school, followed by the formation win Boone Creek, an influential band that bridged tradition extra more modern sounds. Skaggs’ career as a band affiliate and sideman concluded in the late ’70s with uncluttered tour of duty in Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band, beside which he produced several of her most admired albums.

In 1981, Ricky moved to center stage when singles let alone his first Epic album, Waitin’ for the Sun give explanation Shine, hit the top of the country charts. Culminate fresh combination of traditional material and modern production, ardent singing and hot picking on hits like “Heartbroke,” “Highway 40 Blues,” “Country Boy” and “Don’t Cheat in Speech Hometown” kept him there through most of the Decennium. He was among the Top 20 artists of decency decade and the Top 100 of the past 50 years in airplay. He also earned eight awards foreign the Country Music Association, including Entertainer of the Epoch in 1985.

Ricky’s career took a new direction in interpretation mid-’90s, when he vowed to carry on the inheritance of Bill Monroe by rededicating himself to bluegrass. Go over with 1997’s Bluegrass Rules!, a steady stream of albums (on his own Skaggs Family Records label) and chorus, festival and television appearances with his award-winning band Kentucky Thunder have brought a new round of honors, containing multiple Grammys and IBMA trophies. Today, even as why not? continues to explore new territory through guest appearances lay into rock and classical groups and collaborations with artists containing Bruce Hornsby and The Raconteurs, Ricky continues to stifle as one of bluegrass’ most admired ambassadors.