A soaring tenor vocalist adept on the mandolin, guitar, and fiddle, Ricky Skaggs fine-tuned his craft in the bands of bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris before becoming a solo artist.
Arguably bluegrass music’s hottest young picker and singer in the 1970s, Skaggs established himself as both heir apparent to the reigning legends and a leader of the progressive bluegrass movement.
Skaggs adapted his sound enough to become a mainstream country star in the 1980s and was named the CMA Country Music Association‘s Entertainer of the Year in 1985. From 1981 through 1989, he scored nineteen Top Ten country singles, including the No. 1 country hits “Heartbroke,” “Uncle Pen,” and “Country Boy.”
Since 1990, Skaggs has become bluegrass’s leading ambassador, prominent as a TV and radio host, concert attraction, and award-winning recording artist. In 1997, he established Skaggs Family Records and released the straight-ahead bluegrass album “Bluegrass Rules!” The Grammy-winning collection also took home the International Bluegrass Music Association‘s Album of the Year award and was the first of eight IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year wins for Skaggs’s band, Kentucky Thunder. All in all, Skaggs has earned [fifteen] Grammys.
Skaggs was inducted into both the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
Photo credit: TNN Music City News and Country Music Hall of Fame Archives