Ten-time Grammy® Award-winner Ricky Skaggs' career is easily among the most significant in recent country music history, and essentially reflects the changes within the genre since his emergence as a solo artist.
Born July 18, 1954 in Cordell, Kentucky, Skaggs showed signs of future stardom at an early age, playing mandolin on stage with bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe at age five and appearing on TV with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs at seven. He emerged as a professional bluegrass musician in 1971, when he and his friend Keith Whitley were invited to join the legendary Ralph Stanley's band the Clinch Mountain Boys.
Skaggs then went on to record and perform with progressive bluegrass acts like the Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe & The New South, whose self-titled 1975 Rounder Records debut album was instantly recognized as a landmark bluegrass achievement. He then led Boone Creek, which also featured dobro ace and fellow New South alumnus Jerry Douglas.
But Skaggs turned to the more mainstream country music genre in the late '70s when he joined Emmylou Harris's Hot Band, replacing Rodney Crowell. He became a recording artist in his own right in 1981 when his Epic label debut album Waitin' for the Sun to Shine topped the country charts and yielded a pair of #1 hits. Overall, his productive stay at Epic would result in a total of 12 #1 hits. Additionally, he garnered eight Country Music Association Awards—including the coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1985.
Skaggs, of course, fit right in with young "new-traditionalist" '80s artists like Randy Travis, and helped rejuvenate the country music genre after the worn-out "Urban Cowboy" period. He brought his roots in bluegrass and traditional country music to the contemporary Nashville sound, and was lauded by none other than Nashville Sound architect Chet Atkins for "single-handedly" saving the country format.
Skaggs' 1997 album Bluegrass Rules!, released on his newly formed Skaggs Family Records label, marked a triumphant return to bluegrass—which he's solidified ever since with a series of Grammy®-recognized albums with his amazing bluegrass band, Kentucky Thunder (winners of the IBMA 'Instrumental Group of the Year' six out of the last seven years). The label where "Bluegrass Rules" has also served as a home for similar bluegrass and roots music-oriented artists including Melonie Cannon, The Whites and Mountain Heart.
Ricky Skaggs' career, then, has virtually come around full circle from its traditional country music foundation to the commercial country mainstream and back again—thereby effectively foreshadowing the bluegrass music explosion fueled by the 2000 Coen Brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? and its celebrated soundtrack. Today he continues to record and tour with Kentucky Thunder, while signing developing acts to Skaggs Family Records including Cherryholmes, Ryan Holladay and Keith Sewell. The future of bluegrass is alive and well.