Kentucky Traveler (7 page)

Next thing I knew, Dad was telling us to get ready and grab our instruments from the car; sure enough, Hawkshaw and Jean were going to give us a spot to play a few songs that night.

It was a truly kind gesture, and it turned out great. There was only one hitch. Euless didn't show up to the gig, so we didn't have a fiddler. We found out later he got a case of stage fright and drank too much and missed out on our big moment. But Elmer was there with us on banjo, and I got to do a mandolin solo. The legendary Opry announcer Grant Turner was beside us, rooting us on and exhorting the crowd. It wasn't the Opry, but it was pretty darn close.

I'm so glad my cousin Barbara Sue Skaggs was with us that night. She took a picture of that appearance, and you can see all four feet of me at the microphone.

That was early 1961. Two years later, on March 5, 1963, Hawkshaw was killed in the same plane crash that took the lives of Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, and his son-in-law Randy Hughes. It was a very sad time in Nashville, especially for Jean. In the years since, I've thanked Miss Jean Shepard many times for letting us play as guests on the Midnite Jamboree. It meant so much to our family.

Mostly, though, the Skaggs Family was a local act. We used to work a lot of churches, pie suppers, theaters, and schools, in towns all over eastern Kentucky. We played from Prestonsburg to Paintsville, near Butcher Hollow, where Loretta Lynn's from. Every now and then, we'd get a paying gig. But we didn't make any real money. It was just a hobby, and good practice for me.

The Skaggs Family band also gave my mom a chance to step out and sing her own songs. She had a bunch of things she'd written around the house. One was called “All I Ever Loved Was You,” a song that Ralph Stanley later recorded. Mom didn't play an instrument, but she'd write out what she could and Dad would help her work out the melody on his guitar. She wrote a lot of love songs when Dad was away working and she was missing him. He'd be on her mind, and she'd wake up in the middle of the night thinking of lyrics. She'd jump out of bed and jot down the words before she'd forget. She said the songs would just come to her.

I was thinking about my mom the other day when I was listening to “Mother's Only Sleeping” by Bill Monroe, one of his most popular records. It was one of her favorites. Not having my mother now makes me realize how this song touches people when they hear it. Mama was such a powerful influence: Her singing and songwriting inspired me, her words encouraged me, and her prayers always kept me safe.

The songwriting gift my mom had, I didn't get. I haven't been blessed that way, not so far, anyhow. I keep believing that one day I'm gonna get real inspired to write songs. I don't think you can force it; at least I can't. It may never happen for me, but I'm hoping it will.

Music is a calling, and I mean that literally, too. I remember I'd be out goofing around in the woods, and Mom would stand on the front step of our house and holler, “Lester and Earl's on!” Her voice could travel a mile, and no matter where I was, I heard her loud and clear. The Flatt & Scruggs TV show was sponsored by Martha White flour. It was syndicated on television stations all over the South. The show brought Lester and Earl and their red-hot band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, into the living rooms of millions, and it had helped make Flatt & Scruggs the most popular bluegrass act in the country. I'd take off as hard as I could run, on back to the house. The music had a pull on me like nothing else, not even the call of the woods.

At the time, I didn't know what “child prodigy” meant, and nobody ever said it. Prodigy was not a word we threw around in Kentucky back then. People would just smile and say, “That boy's got a lot of talent. God's given him a gift.” And those words stuck with me. You'd be surprised how much a child is influenced by words. My mom always reminded me that the Lord had given me my gifts, but she didn't make me feel like I had to pay Him back by only playing gospel. As if I could ever pay back the Lord's kindness to me.

My mother said those words to me to remind me that my talent didn't come out of nowhere; it came from the Creator. Her words were full of joy and blessing, and they poured into me. I knew I had to use the gift the best I could and not let it go to waste.

See, Dad gave me the mandolin and love for music, but my mom gave me a faith. Through her example I learned the importance of praying and trusting in God. Without those pillars, the gift of music, though wonderful, would not be enough to uplift my spirit and satisfy my heart. Mom taught me only Jesus can have that place. I always remembered what my mother taught, even when I wasn't all the way living up to it. Mama was doing what she always did: preparing me for the road I'm on now, the road I've been traveling for most of my life.

Like a sinner's penance, the Ryman was austere, its wooden benches harsh, its roof offering no respite from the sapping summer heat. It was the weekend home of the Grand Ole Opry, a country radio show regarded as a sacred monument. . . . The Opry was revered by all who loved country music for its authority and grandeur
.

—
Are You Ready for the Country
, by Peter Doggett

A night at the Opry is a concoction of color, confusion, country culture, and corn. To observe the show is to see a spectacle rooted in the American grain. . . . “New York advertising people just don't believe it when they see it,” said Ott Devine, general manager of the Opry, in an interview in Nashville in 1961. “They just don't understand the informality
.”

—
The Country Music Story
, by Robert Shelton

I
n 1962, Dad took a job at the Tennessee Valley Authority plant near Paradise, in the southwestern part of Kentucky. It was at the atomic energy plant, and they needed skilled welders. This was no ordinary job for hire, done in a few weeks and on to the next. It was full-time employment, so the whole family was moving with him. But the TVA welding job wasn't the only reason he uprooted the family to leave the hollow. It was mostly on account of me and my mandolin.

Paradise was only a few hours' drive from Nashville. And Nashville was home to the Grand Ole Opry, where all the country stars played. Dad moved us close to Nashville so I could have a decent shot at the country-music business, and so we could give it a go with the Skaggs Family band, too. His greatest dream was to get me on the Opry. The only way to get on the Opry, he figured, was to be in Nashville.

So we moved to Goodlettsville, Tennessee, a suburb north of town. It was a big change for us. It was probably hardest on my oldest brother, Garold, because he loved hunting and fishing and running the woods so much. The rest of us were excited. And we wouldn't be leaving everyone behind at Brushy Creek. My dad's cousin Glair Mullins got hired at the TVA plant, too, and he and his wife also moved to Goodlettsville, living two doors down from us in our new neighborhood.

It was a brand-new subdivision: tidy little three-bedroom houses all lined up and straight driveways down to the paved street, complete with a street sign for Fannin Drive. Roads back home curved like a copperhead, and most were simple dirt paths cut into the land. We were a long way from Brushy.

I still had a lot of Kentucky in me, though, and it didn't take much for me to put it on full display. One of the first things that happened after we moved in was me getting in a fistfight with a boy in the neighborhood. We'd barely even met, and I busted his nose.

The stupid fight was over a mulberry tree, if you can believe it. We got into a crazy argument over this tree that grew along our street. I don't remember how it even started, just him saying, “It's my tree!” and me saying, “No, it ain't!” Something in me snapped, and I reared back and popped him right in the nose. It was a hard punch, too, and I knew his nose was broken. I still don't know what triggered it. I guess this boy had pushed me to the limit.

When I saw his nose spewing out blood, I was as surprised as he was. I immediately felt terrible and ashamed of what I'd done. I started to tell him how sorry I was and tried to hug him, but I just got his blood all over me, too. Now we were both a bloody mess standing there under the mulberry tree.

He went home screaming to his mom, and I went home crying to mine. This wasn't a very good way to make a new friend. The boy's mother came to our house and told my mom what had happened. Mom said, “When your dad gets home, you're gonna get it.” I dreaded to see Dad pull into the driveway, and when he did I really got my butt busted. He didn't want me growing up fighting, especially over something piddly like that. If that boy had challenged me, or said something about my family, there may have been a little more justification. But to get into a fight over a mulberry tree that didn't belong to either one of us? That was pretty senseless.

After that I never got into another fight. One was enough. Now, I did learn to spit and whistle and do all the other things boys my age did back then. I was a regular kid except when it came time for sports, and that's when I wished I didn't play music so much.

Dad didn't let me try out for any team sports, because he thought I'd hurt my mandolin hands. He never wanted me playing baseball, because he was afraid I'd get a bad hop on a ground ball or get nailed by a line drive and mash my fingers. Same with basketball and football.

Garold was on the Little League baseball team they had in Goodlettsville. We didn't have organized sports or anything like that in Kentucky, which of course made the idea seem even cooler to me. I mean, Garold had a uniform, so by gosh, I wanted to have me a uniform and play on the team, too! Well, Dad wasn't gonna let that happen.

I was really upset. I wanted to be in on the fun the other kids were having. He said music was too important to let a freak accident on a ball field ruin my chances. He wouldn't budge. My mom talked him into letting me be the batboy. It gave me a role to play and I got to have a uniform, so I was happy. Before you get to feeling too sorry for me, I can tell you now that Dad was absolutely right on this point. Looking back on it, I'm glad he didn't let me get involved with team sports, because I believe I'd probably have lost my focus on music if I played, and it would have cost me in the long run. I could have ended up being okay as an athlete and being good as musician—but not being great at anything.

The way it turned out, batboy was plenty enough organized athletics for me, 'cause I realized music was gonna be my true sport. When most kids were discovering other pursuits and peers to keep them occupied, I sort of hunkered down for the long haul with my little mandolin, with my Dad as my guide. I'd found something I was good at, something I could count on.

I
t wasn't too long after we moved to Tennessee before Dad's plans to get me on the Opry hit a snag. The management said I was too young to play their stage because of child labor laws. But Dad wasn't going to let a little setback like that stop him.

This was back when the Opry was in downtown Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium, which is an old brick building that started as a church called the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892. It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but you could hardly believe what a mecca it was then and what it meant to country music fans. In the afternoons, before show time, you'd see families eating fried-chicken dinners on the curb in front of the Ryman, while we scooted down the alley to the back entrance behind Tootsie's bar.

Things were more casual back then when it came to meeting celebrities. Dad made friends with the backstage guard at the Opry, a man named Mr. Bell. Here again, we're talking about my dad, who just made things happen. Mr. Bell took a shine to this kindly mountain man and his little mandolin boy.

Mr. Bell alone decided who could come and go backstage, a sacred area that was off-limits to the general public. He was the law, but he was not puffed up by his station. He had compassion and good old common sense, and he decided that we were as earnest as they come and that we didn't give a hoot about autographs. So he told Dad and me, “Okay, I'll let y'all back in here. But remember: We've got a live show going on. So don't be pestering people, and whatever you do, make sure you don't touch nobody's instruments! Y'all know how to be.” It was really nice of Mr. Bell, and I'll always remember what he did for us, because I know he helped a dad and his son chase a dream.

One day in the late fall of 1962, we were backstage at the Ryman as all the country greats were coming and going, getting ready for the show. We were standing off to the side, away from all the hustle and bustle. I was strumming my mandolin when Earl Scruggs happened to walk by, and he stopped to listen. Earl was so casual and down-home, and he was in no hurry at all. It might seem strange that he was so willing to pay attention to little a kid, but he had boys my age, Randy and Gary, who were learning to play, too.

I started in on one of the little breaks I'd been working on, and Earl stood there and listened for a bit. When he'd heard enough, he said, in his easy-going way, “The boy's a fine little picker. Why don't you bring him down for an audition next week for our television show? I'd like to get him on.” Earl didn't make any promises. He told my dad it was up to the producers of the show. But we were over the moon.

An appearance on the Flatt & Scruggs TV show! My dad didn't need half a second to tell Earl we'd be there at the studio ready to go.

The audition was a big success, and the producers put me on the schedule. I got a chance to meet Lester and all the Foggy Mountain Boys that day. They were real nice men like Earl, and they made me feel welcome. We did a rehearsal, working up an instrumental, “Foggy Mountain Special,” and running through my old stand-by, “Ruby.”

Come show time I was ready. I was freshly shorn with my flattop haircut, and Mom dressed me in a Kentucky Colonel string tie just like the Foggy Mountain Boys wore. Right before I went out, Lester came over to give me some last-minute instructions. He said that just before they announced me he'd be doing a commercial for the sponsor, and at that moment, he wanted me to go tug on his coat and tell him I want to play with the band.