Ricky Skaggs
Coming to Brown County
~by Ryan Stacy
T
o call Ricky Skaggs an icon would be accurate, but a little misleading. Icons—in cathedrals and on desktops—are stationary and fixed. They’re powerful, but they just sit there. Ricky Skaggs, however, is anything but unmoving. He’s a picking, fiddling force of nature who changes every musical landscape he touches. By the time he was old enough to hold a mandolin, Ricky was playing with the greats. He joined Bill Monroe onstage at age six; he was on TV with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs by seven. By 1980, he’d played with Ralph Stanley, Emmylou Harris, and J.D. Crowe & the New South. Then he launched a solo career that’s now spanned over four decades and three musical genres. Fans and critics responded, and to date Ricky’s taken home more than a dozen Grammys and
32 Our Brown County • July/August 2022
courtesy photo
eight CMAs, and he’s been inducted into the Country Music, Bluegrass, Gospel, Musicians, and National Fiddler Halls of Fame. Then in 2020, his genre-defining, chart-topping, industry-sweeping musical career was recognized with a National Medal of Arts. Fun fact: Ricky Skaggs may admire Brown County as much as Brown County admires him. As a kid, he’d listen to Bill Monroe on the Grand Ole Opry’s radio show on Saturday nights. “I remember Mr. Monroe talking about his bluegrass festival in Bean Blossom, Indiana, and he was so excited about it,” Ricky says. “It made me want to go.” He did eventually go—in 1971, as a member of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley’s band. “Man, that was such an eye Continued on 34
