If you missed Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder at Edmonds Center for the Arts last week, you missed authentic bluegrass. These guys are it, the real deal.
I make no bones about it. This country kid who’s been stacking Grammies for 25 years, including 2009 (Best Bluegrass Album “Honoring The Fathers of Bluegrass 1946 @ 1947”), was an unknown to me. Now, I feel like I’ve known him all my life.
It’s his emotional honesty. Skaggs connected when he first appeared on stage with the legendary Bill Monroe in 1959 at age 5 and still does. He means it when he sings, writes, plays and produces what he calls “Hillbilly Jazz,” meaning Bluegrass.
Men and women, family, home, country and the Bible, pretty much root most of his music, and there isn’t much in it that’s new except his own, unique style. The show I saw was all strings: Skaggs’ mandolin; and Kentucky Thunder’s basses, fiddles, guitars and banjos. The sound ranged from fast and furious, to slow and drawn out. It was rich, complex and natural in its timelessness. The overall impression was: it is impossible to draw a line between these musicians and their music; they are the same thing.
“Cryin’ My Heart Out Over You” spelled out heartbreak. “Don’t Cheat in Our Home Town” warned with edge. “Country Boy” drew solace from simplicity. “Highway 40 Blues” lamented being away from home and family. “Mother’s Only Sleepin’” comforted in time of loss of a loved one.
Kentucky Thunder was there, each one hand-picked and deserving of recognition in his own right and all respectful, if not idolizing of Skaggs. His definitely was the personality that dominated. His manner of story-telling between songs, his vocals and his instrumentals generated the show’s friendly, down-home tone. How can I be so sure?
Everyone at ECA last weekend clamored for more, myself included, when Skaggs and Thunder finished. They gave us one more and urged us to influence ECA for one of their upcoming “Skaggs Family Christmas Shows.” The roar of approval and applause was our answer.
Call Ricky Skaggs hokey, old hat and backward. I dare you to see him in concert and not like him.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entopinion@heraldnet.com or grayghost@comcast.net.
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