Kentucky Traveler (10 page)

Even so, it was a painful moment for me. I lost some innocence that night. I can't even relate to that innocence now, after all I've seen of life and the things people do and the suffering some go through. I've come to realize my parents were right, and it wasn't my place to judge. I understand more what the Stanleys were up against now. Those nips of whiskey helped keep 'em going. It wasn't partying, it was maintenance.

In any case, finding those whiskey bottles in the shower stall didn't stop me from loving the Stanleys and their music, and I was still a loyal fan.

N
ot long after that, my teenage sister Linda came home with a couple of new 45-rpm singles by the Beatles. She put 'em on the turntable, and the house filled with a kind of music I'd never heard before. It was fresh, exciting, and new. But there was something in the harmonies and the singing structure that wasn't foreign to me.

When I heard John and Paul sing together, I said to myself,
There's another brother duet!
I could hear the Everly Brothers in their harmonies. Now where did that apple fall from? Not far from the tree. 'Cause I knew there was something in the Beatles' way of singing that was kin to the Everlys and Ira and Charlie Louvin and the Stanleys, and even all the way back to Bill and Charlie Monroe.

So when I heard the Beatles, I heard my British cousins. They were an updated brother harmony team. Turns out they were huge fans of Phil and Don Everly. John and Paul sounded like Phil and Don, and Phil and Don sounded like Ira and Charlie, and Ira and Charlie sounded like Ralph and Carter, and Ralph and Carter sounded like Bill and Charlie. It was a cycle come full circle.

There was so much country in early rock and roll, with roots in that old brothers-style, close-harmony singing. It's a special vocal sound that has inspired so many people through the years. All this music is just one big family, in a way. My son Luke has turned me on to a lot of new acoustic modern folk music, like Mumford & Sons, Fleet Foxes, and Iron & Wine. Some of that isn't too different from the mountain music I was raised on.

I thank God I had an older teenage sister. I owe a lot to Linda for introducing me to the Beatles so early on and bringing the British Invasion into our house on Brushy Creek. If she hadn't bought “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me,” I might not have been exposed to the Beatles till much later. She cranked those 45s from her bedroom, and my parents were playing the Stanley Brothers in the living room.

Mom and Dad at first just put up with the Beatles, but soon they came to like them. Now, Dad certainly liked Red Foley better than he liked Ringo Starr, but he had a fine old ear no matter what type of music, and he appreciated their talent. He even told me one time, “Them boys are good!”

I remember the night the Beatles were on
The Ed Sullivan Show
. At our house we could get Channel 13, the ABC affiliate, and Channel 3, the NBC affiliate, out of Huntington, West Virginia, where Flatt & Scruggs's and Porter Wagoner's shows were broadcast. Grandpa Skaggs lived across the bottomland, and he could pick up Channel 5, the CBS affiliate out of Charleston, West Virginia that aired the Sullivan show every Sunday night. It was wintertime, so we got ourselves bundled up and walked through the snow to my grandpa's house after dinner that evening.

The Beatles came on the TV, and my sister went wild. She was screaming and pulling her hair out and going nuts, hollering, “Aren't they great? They're the best group I ever saw in my whole life!” She wouldn't let up until my Dad finally said, “Well, they're pretty good.” I punched Dad in the arm and said, “The Beatles ain't as good as the Stanley Brothers, though, right, Dad?” I was smart-mouthing my older sister, but Dad let it go because he was on my side of the argument.

Truth be told, I loved the Beatles right along with my Stanleys. Just like I loved the Rolling Stones and the Hollies along with my Flatt & Scruggs and Bill Monroe. One of my favorite records was “Look Through Any Window” by the Hollies. I was such a huge harmony freak, and the Hollies floored me with their vocal arrangements. I feel blessed to have grown up in that era, because it was such a great time for all kinds of music.

The day after
The Ed Sullivan Show
, all the kids came to our school with their hair combed down like the Beatles. It was unbelievable. With my vacation Bible school flattop, I didn't have any bangs to pull down, but I sure would have! The Beatles had a look that was new and kinda strange, but it made its way to Brushy Creek. When you think about it, it wasn't any stranger than when Bill Monroe walked onto the Opry stage in 1939 dressed like a Kentucky fox hunter, with riding pants and jodhpurs and hat.

Anyhow, it wasn't just the Beatles' singing I loved. I'd heard that backbeat on some old country records. The Beatles were influenced by Elvis and Buddy Holly and Bill Haley, who were all influenced by Bill Monroe. So I was hearing all these connections, and I loved it. But I was even more intrigued by the Beatles and their electric guitars.

E
ver since we'd lived in Tennessee, I'd wanted to learn to play guitar. I'd been trying to play Dad's D-28 Martin, but it wore me out trying to pick his big guitar with my little mandolin hands. And good Lord, the Mapes-brand strings my dad used were sure big for a kid raised on a mandolin. Dad heard me struggling, and I started asking him if he'd get me a guitar that played easier. He said he'd look for one, and this old fella we knew, Mr. Upchurch, had an ol' beautiful black Gibson guitar that played like butter. It had a nice small neck, and the strings were low on the fretboard and easy to hold down with my little fingers. Mr. Upchurch let us keep it for a while, and I started practicing mandolin tunes on guitar. It was my second instrument. But after seeing the Beatles, I wanted to plug in.

Back in the Kentucky mountains, there weren't too many electric guitar players. You'd see them in the Holiness churches, but that was about it. But there was one guy, Clyde Ball, and he had a cool-looking electric guitar. I wanted more than anything to play it. Clyde was a family friend, and he had an old black Silvertone with a Bigsby tailpiece on it. Clyde let me borrow it, and I'd play the instrumental hits by Duane Eddy and by the Ventures that were all over the radio at the time. I was also learning Chet Atkins stuff like “Yakety Axe” then. At school, I had some friends who had a little rock and roll band. I would show up with that Silvertone and play Ventures songs, and sometimes I'd even play bass or drums for laughs. We had a few gigs at school events, but we didn't even stay together long enough to have a name.

Me and another friend named Darrell Boggs entered this little talent show right after the Beatles hit Lawrence County. He had a big ol' Les Paul Gibson electric guitar, and I had my Dad's acoustic D-28 Martin. We did a sort of two-teenager rendition of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and we won. Then we tried to go for a bigger prize on a talent show on television in Huntington, West Virginia. It turned out pretty terrible. We came in something like thirtieth place, I think, but it sure was fun.

My mind was always open when it came to music. I always wanted to learn something new and try something different. I liked the challenge of it. Rock and roll was a lot of fun to play and fool around with, but I never felt it was right for me. It was just a gut feeling that my calling was with the music I was raised on. My parents didn't seem to mind that I wanted to experiment. They didn't call rock and roll the Devil's music, the way so many parents did back then. They seemed to know that mountain music was what was closest to my heart.

I guess it was a time when a lot of kids rebelled against their parents with sex and drugs and rock and roll, but I was always taught to obey my folks, and so I did as best I could. Besides, I never had any good reason to rebel against them.

When I look back now, I think my driving force at that time was the musical partnership I'd had with Dad and Mom. I still enjoyed playing with them so much, and that was what I wanted to keep doing, no matter what. In the back of my mind, I knew that if I went off playing rock or some other kind of music as a serious pursuit, then we wouldn't be able to play together anymore. And I didn't want that to end.

Lord, I ain't no stranger now

I've been introduced to the Father and the Son
,

And I ain't no stranger now
.

—“Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord” by the New South, 1975

N
ow, I want to tell you about when I left behind my boyhood and became a man. Two big events happened then around the same time. One was when I shot a gun for the first time, and the other was when I got saved. I was a lot more sure of myself when it came to shooting a gun than I was with getting saved, but that wasn't nobody's fault but the Devil's.

There was a revival down the road at Blaine Free Will Baptist Church. These revivals lasted for a few days and sometimes a few weeks. My mom and dad and me would usually help with the service and play a few gospel songs. The preachers who held the revivals were John Pelfry and Emerson Collier, and my folks knew them well. They did some fiery preaching every night. At this particular revival, you could feel the Spirit moving.

One night during the altar call, I saw Dad go forward and rededicate his life to the Lord. He had already gotten saved as a young man, and he'd been baptized, too. He and my mom had always walked the faith. I don't know if his disability had anything to do with how he was feeling, or where he was on his spiritual journey. He didn't talk about those things, and I never did ask. All I know for sure is that on this night, he got convicted in the Spirit and wanted to make a recommitment to his faith.

The Lord had been dealing with me already. I'd been feeling conviction from Pastor Pelfry's preaching, and I was feeling a conviction in the Holy Spirit, too. I'd been around good preaching since I was a little kid, but I'd never felt the urge to go forward.

But now I was thirteen years old, and I was hearing the message in a different light. I'd gotten to a new place. Mom and Dad always talked about the age of accountability, when you're old enough to make your own decision about your faith, when you're accountable to God. I had gotten to an age where I realized I needed to make a decision—was I going to accept Christ, or reject Him?

For the first couple nights of the revival, I'd been white-knuckling during the altar call. I was holding onto those pews so tight. It was the time of reckoning. I knew I needed to go and give my heart to the Lord, and I felt the Holy Spirit drawing me to make a decision. But being just a kid, I thought to myself,
What could I have done so bad that I really needed to be saved? Was I really ready?

I wanted to go, but I was so fearful. One of the things I was most fearful of was that God would make me a preacher and I'd have to give up my music to be in the ministry. I was still too immature and unsure, even after those old men had prophesized over me years before and said God was going to use my gift to minister to people. I didn't know what that meant. I was so afraid, and I let fear keep me from the very thing that God wanted to bring to my life, the joy of accepting Christ. And really, that is the story of a whole lot of people's lives.

But when I saw Dad go forward that night, it made an impact on me. It was the nudge I needed. I realized that if it was important enough to him to take that altar walk and make his commitment publicly, then it was important enough to me, too. Seeing my dad go down the aisle opened my eyes and my heart. It was like a shot of courage.

A few nights later, we were singing at the revival service again. Every time I sang those old hymns about the Lord, my heart felt warm and full, and my spirit just burned inside. Then came the altar call. I was standing there white-knuckling same as before, but this time both my hands came off the back of the pew. It just happened. I remember I put my left foot out and took a step and my right foot followed. And I started walking down the aisle.

Nobody had come and started pulling on me or persuading me or anything. There were preachers known to do that sometimes. Bully pulpit preachers who'd yank you right out of your pew and drag you down the aisle. Some people called that sort of thing “holding people over hell with a rotten stick.”

If you've never been to a revival, you have to realize how overwhelming it can be. There were Holiness revivals going on down Highway 23 in Whitesburg, Kentucky, led by the singing preacher and musician Brother Claude Ely. He made 78-rpm records of his services, and fifty years later you can hear for yourself how intense and wild the music and the preaching and the praying could get.

I'm thankful that in my case it was the spirit of God working on me, and I knew I just had to obey His will. My feet started moving, and I followed. When I made it down the aisle, I dropped down on my knees in front of the altar and repented to God, pouring my heart out to Him. I told Him I was sorry for my sins. I asked Him to come into my heart and I told Him I wanted to be saved. I knelt at the altar and couldn't stop sobbing. I cried and cried like I'd murdered someone.

Now, let me tell you straight. It wasn't this magnificent experience you hear about. There was no night-and-day difference. It wasn't Paul on the road to Damascus. It didn't happen to me like that. But I knew in my heart I had made a commitment to Christ. That was all that mattered.

A few days later, I ran into a neighbor who'd been to the revival and seen me down at the altar. He asked, “So you're saved. How do you feel now?” All I could say was, “Well, it's all so new and so different, I'm just not sure how I feel.”

His question had me stumped. I'd never really studied the Bible or been to Sunday school, so I didn't know how I was supposed to feel. Was I supposed to feel like a totally new person and not like the old Ricky Skaggs anymore? Was I supposed to never think a bad thought or do anything wrong again? This neighbor then said to me, “If you don't know how you feel, you must not have got saved, then.” He'll never know how strong those words were, but the weight of them crushed me. That was all it took to sow a little seed of doubt in my heart. And my heart was so tender at that age, so freshly plowed by the Lord. That seed of doubt got in and took root and started to grow. I started to believe I probably hadn't been saved at all.