Kentucky Traveler (31 page)

I stood there almost frozen, with Bonnie waiting for my answer. I was nervous and a little bit fearful, but everything in me was saying yes. So I took a deep breath, put on a brave smile, and told Bonnie I'd give it my best shot. I ran outside to the car, grabbed my guitar, and headed for the stage. Rick Blackburn introduced me and told the audience I was brand-new to the label. There was some polite applause, and I went out there and did my thing. I sang my tried and true Flatt & Scruggs covers and a pretty ballad from the new album called “Waitin' for the Sun to Shine.” I ended the set with “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed,” the old Merle Travis hit. Lo and behold, the audience loved it and gave me a standing ovation. I think their reaction was sheer surprise, plain and simple. Rick was thrilled! This level of exposure was going to be really helpful, and was coming about a year ahead of what he'd planned. It was fuel for the fire that Rick was starting to build for me at Epic. His bosses in New York saw what happened same as he did, and so did every country disc jockey worth his salt from Maine to California. I couldn't have had a better audience to generate buzz for my first album release. After that night, Rick was ready to go for broke.

Two days later, I got this note from Rick that I'll always treasure:

In the meantime, my singles on Sugar Hill were still getting some heavy airplay and positive word-of-mouth. Chuck Morgan, the nighttime disc jockey at WSM, was playing the snot out of “I'll Take the Blame,” and he phoned to say he was in my corner. WSM was the flagship station of the Grand Ole Opry, and its 50,000-watt broadcast signal reached all over the country. Chuck's word carried weight, and it wasn't long after that Hal Durham, who was in charge of the Opry, invited me to be a guest on the Saturday night broadcast. Oh, man, was I ever excited. You couldn't have kept me away with a team of horses.

I'll never forget that night. Emmylou was in town and came by the Opry House to help as only she could. I sang “I'll Take the Blame” first, with Sharon and Cheryl singing backup. Then Emmy strolled on stage and we sang a duet on “Could You Love Me One More Time.”'Course, it was Emmy who first introduced me to the country music world, and here she was making it official.

It was a big boost to my career at a time when nobody knew who Ricky Skaggs was. I'll always be grateful to Emmy. And to have the Whites share the moment, too; it was ice cream on the cake. The Opry crowd made a lot of noise stamping and clapping for the old Stanley Brothers songs done hard-core country-style, and they made me feel welcome. To get to be a guest on the Grand Ole Opry was the coolest thing ever!

Mom and Dad were back home on Brushy Creek, listening to the Opry on the radio the same way they had since they were newlyweds, when they would tune in to hear Monroe and all the rest of their favorites. Now their little Ricky was on the Opry, too, singing on the radio. Quite a special moment for Hobert and Dorothy Skaggs and, especially for Dad, a dream come true. Had it been only twenty years since the Opry security guard Mr. Bell had taken pity on a mountain man and his mandolin-playing son and let them sneak backstage?

B
y now, Sharon and I decided it was time to start a new chapter in our lives. We both had dreams to make it in the music business, and we were gonna help each other as best we could. Sharon's career with the Whites was already up and going, and mine was starting to take off. We decided to take the ride together.

Our wedding was at the Two Rivers Mansion, an antebellum plantation house outside Nashville, on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland and Stones rivers. We tried to keep the guest list small, just family and a few friends. I'd only been in town a little while, but Sharon had been here since 1971. She and the Whites knew everybody in Nashville, from Hazel Smith to Grandpa Jones. With so many musicians coming to celebrate, we decided to make our wedding day into a pickin' party. On the invitations, we made a special request:

NO GIFTS, PLEASE. BRING A COVERED DISH AND YOUR INSTRUMENT TO HELP US CELEBRATE.

The night before the wedding, we got a head start on the festivities with a musical get-together at my apartment, and we had us a big ol' time. My folks were staying with me, and they'd brought family friends, Bud and Ophelia Huntley. Bud used to book the Clinch Mountain Boys at a little schoolhouse in Franklin, North Carolina. After one show, we went to the Huntleys' house for dinner out in the country. Ophelia had fried up a chicken and made some biscuits and gravy, and we had an unbelievable meal, with Keith, Curly Ray, Roy, Jack, and Ralph crowded around the supper table.

During my time with Ralph, Bud and my dad had become great friends. Dad would drive down to Bud's and go out in the woods diggin' for ginseng in the Carolina mountains. Then Bud would come over to our place in eastern Kentucky and go coon hunting with us. Bud was a stonemason by trade, and he even built the fireplace and chimney for Dad and Mom's new house on Brushy Creek.

That pre-wedding party turned into quite a bash. People kept dropping by, and my place could hardly hold everybody. It was like being back on Brushy Creek, when neighbors gathered at our place to sing and play. I remember Maria Muldaur came by to wish us well, and she joined in on the musicmaking. When she heard my mom sing, she started to cry. She'd never heard an ol' mountain woman's voice like my mom's, and it touched her heart.

That night, we roared till past two or three in the morning. As usual, my Dad was the boss and kept asking for “one more.” Back on Brushy in the old days, you remember, he knew how to clear the place out when it got too late. Well, now it was my turn, and I put my foot down. “Dad,” I said. “We gotta let everybody go and get some sleep. Didja forget that I gotta get married tomorrow?”

Well, Dad did what he was told. But don't you know, on the big day, bless his heart, he almost missed the ceremony. We were running late, and there he sat with the reel-to-reel machine out, listening to the tapes he'd made of Santford Kelly. When we finally made it out the door, Dad was following me in his car with Bud and Ophelia and Mom. What shoulda been a twenty-minute drive took us three times that. Poor Dad couldn't keep up, much as I tried to guide him. Seemed like he was bound and determined to get lost.

Over at the mansion, everybody was waiting on us. Sharon was busy telling folks we'd be there any minute. I thought she'd be worried sick, but she later told me her heart was as light as a feather that day. We had asked the McLain Family Band to entertain the guests as they arrived. The McLains were a wonderful traditional country group from Kentucky and good friends of ours. They were supposed to play for about fifteen minutes and, after the vows, maybe serenade the newlyweds with a few tunes. They ended up putting on a whole darn show, and they kept going for almost an hour while the groom and half the wedding party was AWOL.

Then a big cloud of dust came churning up the driveway, with gravel flying everywhere. From a distance you'd have sworn it was Richard Petty on the backstretch, but it was me. It was quite an entrance. I got out of the car, and everyone started applauding. I didn't know if it was for my driving skills or just for the fact that I'd finally got there.

Within a few minutes, I was at the altar. I got married in jeans and a long tuxedo coat and cowboy boots. Sharon was wearing a pretty flowered wedding dress. She had Cheryl stand up with her, and I had my manager, Chip Peay, as my best man. Sharon's sisters Rosie and Melissa were bridesmaids, and my groomsmen were Jerry Douglas and my bass player and road manager Jesse Chambers.

The ceremony was on the front porch of the mansion. It was about as laid-back as you could get, but we took our vows as serious as any oath on God's earth. We've been husband and wife thirty-two years now, and we're shooting for thirty-two more. You know how at some weddings the bride lights a candle and then the groom lights a candle and then they take the two candles and they light one candle together? Well, at our ceremony, I sang a song to Sharon, she sang a song to me, and then we sang a song together. It was a beautiful moment, signifying our love and new life together. Our wedding day was August 4, 1981, and we couldn't have picked a hotter day. It was so daggone hot that the cake melted. The lady who made it was from our church, and she worked so hard in the kitchen baking that triple-decker. The reception was outside, where it was a hundred degrees in the shade, and the cake made it to the table in pieces. The baker was devastated, but the cake served a purpose. It was the only thing Sharon and I got to eat. By the time we got done picking and singing, all the food was gone!

My old bluegrass buddies came to help us celebrate, Jerry, Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, and my whole band. The party went for three hours straight. . I had made a special request for Bill Monroe to join us for our special day—and to remember to bring his mandolin. So he did, and he showed up dressed to the nines in his white linen suit and his famous white Stetson.

The best part came when he set his mandolin down and got up and buck-danced with our dear friend Beverly Cotton. Apart from the ceremony, I'd have to say that was the highlight of our wedding, to see him dancing and having so much fun.

E
pic released the album
Waitin' for the Sun to Shine
in June 1981. Now they were waiting on me to go on the road to promote it. I needed to put together a band and start touring.

A record company ain't no charity organization. The labels sign you up to a contract on their faith in your potential, but they need some early returns on their investment before they loan you any money. We were on the road when the album's first single, “Don't Get Above Your Raisin',” climbed into the top twenty on
Billboard
's country chart, taking us all by surprise. We knew we were offering something new, but the rest was up to the marketplace. Then Epic released another single, “You May See Me Walkin'.” It broke into the top ten. I couldn't believe it.

The public reception of the album's title track, “Waitin' for the Sun to Shine,” was another nice surprise. The crowd sang along to every word, and you'd see couples holding hands and swaying in their seats. Sonny Throckmorton had written a sad and pretty tune, and it really spoke to people. I don't play that song much anymore, just once in a while when I play with a full orchestra. It still strikes a chord with audiences.

Early on, “Waitin' for the Sun to Shine” was a signature song for me. And the funny thing was, it never got released as a single, as much as I wanted it to be. I remember calling Joe Casey, my contact at Epic who chose which songs to release as singles. I told him the song ought to be a sure-fire hit considering the audience reaction when we played it. He thought it was a little soft, and that “Crying My Heart Out over You” ought to be the next single. I wasn't so sure. “Trust me on this,” he said. “It's a smash.” And boy was he right.

It went straight to the top. I called Joe to say thanks and told him to keep on picking those singles he wanted, 'cause he sure knew what he was doing. Well, now I had my first number-one country record, and it was a dream come true. Wow, what a feeling! 'Course, my life would never be the same again.

Once we started seeing that radio and record sales were picking up, Epic really got behind us. We got more confidence as a band, more comfortable with each other, and we were getting encores at our shows. We started opening up for major stars like the Statler Brothers, Barbara Mandrell, and Marty Robbins. We were playing at big venues for a whole new audience. After my second number-one record, a remake of Webb Pierce's “I Don't Care,” I started headlining my own shows.

Everything happened so fast I could barely take it all in. It felt like getting shot out of a cannon and landing in the spotlight. I tried not to blink and counted my blessings. I was just happy that radio was playing traditional country music again, and was glad some of it was mine.

'Course, my new career in mainstream country didn't make everybody happy. It angered a lot of bluegrassers, and some of 'em probably never forgave me. But I knew I had to follow this path. I've tried not to let the naysayers bother me. Never really had time to dwell on that, and besides, the people I really cared about were still behind me.

When I had my first number-one record, I remember calling my folks on the phone. Dad didn't pretend to know much about the country charts, but he sure was tickled that my version of an old Flatt & Scruggs song was all over the radio, and he liked the fact that I was still showing my bluegrass roots. But what got him most excited was when I told him I'd gotten to meet one of his favorite country stars, Merle Travis, the finger-picking guru guitar master from Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, who could make a Martin D-28 sound as big as a coal truck. Dad's favorite Merle song was “Dark as a Dungeon,” and he loved to sing and pick “Nine Pound Hammer” on his Martin guitar. Dad was as giddy as a Justin Bieber fan, and he asked, “Well, Son, what'd he say to you?”