Kentucky Traveler (29 page)

Mom and Dad knew we were having trouble, and they knew there wasn't much they could do to help. I remember my mom would just say, “Y'all need to be in church!” And she was right. We were “Eastergoers”—you know, we'd go to church on Easter Sunday and that was about it. We just never could find the time.

Looking back now, I know I should have stayed home more instead of working another session whenever I could. I was so driven to get my career going. Brenda had a lot of responsibilities with Mandy and Andrew, and I couldn't really help. I was trying to be the breadwinner and needed to work, and Brenda and the kids needed me at home. It was an impossible situation.

I was in limbo in my professional life, too, with the record deal and all the pressure to live up to the expectations being placed on me. This was my big chance. Was I going to blow it? All these heavy thoughts kept creeping into my mind. I was trying to be a good dad, a decent husband, a great session player, and a worthy investment for my record company. My emotions were spinning like a top. My mind was fried. My nerves were shot. Help arrived by way of a phone call from an old friend, Joe Wilson. He's spent his life promoting the music he loves: salt-of- the-earth, honest-to-God country music like the hillbilly string bands he heard when he was a boy in the 1940s in the mountains of east Tennessee. For years he ran the National Council for the Traditional Arts in Washington, D.C. Joe's the real deal. He has always stood up for the music whenever folks tried to put it down. Joe and his wife, Kathy James, promote artists they believe in. Joe's got a bloodhound's nose for talent and a good sense for bringing it to the marketplace.

“How'd you like to play a tour of the Far East?” Joe asked.

“Love to,” I said. “Where are we headed and for how long?” I was eager for a change of scenery.

Nothing too strenuous, was how he pitched it. It would cover 48,000 miles in about six weeks.

Well, that sure sounded like a long way to me. I knew a trip around the world was 24,000 miles, so I asked why we had to go twice that. Joe didn't miss a beat.

“Well, Ricky, we've got seven countries to play, from Southeast Asia all the way to Athens,” he said. “And there's a lot of doubling back and gyrations involved. All I can guarantee is you'll see things you've never dreamed of.”

This sounded like a paid vacation. Exhausting, maybe, but exotic, too. What really sold me, though, was the lineup that Joe and Kathy had put together. This was a cultural exchange program sponsored by the U.S. International Communications Agency to spread goodwill through the arts. The idea was to share American music with our friends abroad. They'd assembled a package tour called Southern Music USA. There was a great bluesman and songster from Virginia, John Jackson; and a seasoned Cajun group, D.L. Menard and the Louisiana Aces; and best of all, my favorite family band, the Whites.

The plan was I'd help Jerry Douglas back up the Whites on my fiddle or whatever they needed. And then the Whites and Jerry would back me up when I played a few songs on my own. That way there was no need to hire a pickup band. It'd make the whole thing more affordable for everybody. Plus, Jerry was an old friend, and it'd be good traveling with a guy my age.

I told Joe to count me in, but said I had a few shows to get through first. Turned out, these shows nearly did me in. What happened was a physical breakdown. It hit when I was playing a bluegrass festival with the Whites in Grass Valley, California. I was doing the gig for extra cash so I could send some to Brenda and the kids and pay my rent.

Well, I flew out to Grass Valley for the gig and came up sick. Now, I'd played dog-sick with Ralph and J.D. and all the rest—every bluegrasser has to grin and bear it when they're under the weather. But this was different. I felt real bad, worse than I'd ever felt.

The fever started on the flight and then spiked. During the ride to the festival site, it got worse. My shoulders and back were aching something terrible. Somehow, I made it through the first show, but as soon as we finished I went looking for help. At the festival grounds there was a nurse practitioner who checked me out and gave me a deep-tissue massage. The massage broke my fever, but the nurse feared I had an infection.

She called 911 and sent for an ambulance to take me to the hospital. The Whites had to go on without me. The doctor gave me a worried look and said I was dehydrated and probably had walking pneumonia. He gave me a round of antibiotics and a few shots and told me I'd have to stay at the hospital until they could pump enough fluids into me. Well, this wasn't gonna work, 'cause I needed to be in Nashville the next day to get my passport for the Far East tour. I promised the doc that I'd check into a hospital once I got my passport. He wasn't too happy about letting me go, but he gave me the okay. We caught a plane that night in San Francisco, and I was throwing up the whole flight.

Back in Nashville, I was a wreck. I dragged my sorry self in to have my picture made for the passport, and I could hardly stand up for the camera. I still have the photo on my old passport somewhere, and I look as rough as a cob.

Somehow, I got the proper documents together, and I went straight to the doctor. My temperature was 104 by then. I heard the nurses say it was double pneumonia. You've heard about the “boogie-woogie flu.” Well, I reckon that's what I had. Too much music, too much work; not enough rest, not enough peace.

My life was a mess, and my body was paying the price. I was in that hospital for five days. I needed bed rest and lots of medication, as well as fluids to fight the dehydration. I realized this was a wake-up call. Friends came by, and they all said the same thing,
You look terrible, Ricky. You gotta slow down
.

The double pneumonia was a warning. This ailment was more than physical, it was spiritual, too. My ambition was in control of my life. I felt like the Lord was telling me that I could keep doing things my way, or let Him help me find the right path. I needed to get humble, and slow down. Lying in the hospital bed made me think about a lot of things. It had been a long time since I'd prayed and asked God to help me. I wondered if He really would.

A
few weeks later we were in San Francisco, rehearsing for the tour. We were staying at Point Bonita in the Marin Headlands overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a foggy night, and you could barely see the lighthouse in the hazy darkness. Somebody had decided we should do a song or two together for a big finale to close the show, so we were there to practice, sort of eyeing each other, wondering what to try. “Hey, D.L.,” said Kathy, “how about a Hank Williams song?”

It was a great suggestion, and it broke the ice. D.L. hit a chunky rhythm chord on his old guitar and kicked into Hank's gospel song “I Saw the Light.” His voice hung in the fog like a spell, and then Buck and Sharon and Cheryl all joined on the chorus. I got chill bumps and went hunting for my fiddle. Hearing Hank's message of hope and salvation, I thought,
Maybe this song is meant for me and what I'm goin' through and what I need
. I sure needed some light to shine in my life.

Singing that ol' Hank song pulled us together and gave us the right direction. By the end of that rehearsal, we felt like family and knew this tour was gonna be special, and it sure was. We passed through seven nations in Asia and the Near East, doing our best to make friends for our country with our music and fellowship.

As the trip went on, I found myself spending more and more time with Sharon. We'd talk about what we were gonna do when we got back home, about trying to make it in the music business. Just a couple of young kids dreaming about the future.

Whenever we had the night off, I'd want to go and find some live music. Everybody was usually too tired to come along. Except for Sharon. She was about the only one who wanted to hang with me. “Shoot, yeah!” she'd say. “I'll go!” She was game. She was always up for some music she'd never heard before. I had decided to use all my free time and my portable tape recorder to search out local musicians so I could document what I found. I sure was the son of Hobert Skaggs!

One night we went into a little bar in Bangkok, and we could hardly believe what we found. There were college-age kids on stage picking and singing bluegrass. Thai-style, but it was bluegrass all right, banjo and all. It made me proud that I knew Mr. Monroe. I don't think I've ever been to a country where they didn't know bluegrass, and love it, too.

In Pakistan, I went to a workshop program with a legendary sitar player. He was tall and skinny with long spidery fingers, a real master. His expression was calm and peaceful, but man, could he wear it out. I played my mandolin a little, too, but I got the sense it was more his show than mine, so I switched to my Sony recorder to get him on tape.

He made it look like so much fun that I got the urge to try it for myself, so I made a special request through the translator. Well, swapping instruments wasn't on the program, and the lady from the State Department wasn't too happy 'cause it broke protocol. The sitar man didn't seem to mind, though, and he offered up his instrument with a smile, like,
Help yourself, young man
. You could tell he wasn't expecting much, and neither was I.

A sitar is bulky, so I held it as if it were a big ol' banjo. It felt good in my hands. I started playing a basic melody, I think it was “Cripple Creek” or “Cumberland Gap,” and I got a decent banjo tune going. It surprised everybody, especially the sitar man. He just stared wide-eyed at my hands, 'cause he'd never heard Western melodies coming from a sitar, which was tuned for ragas, not old-time breakdowns. The gal from the State Department just about fainted. I wish my dad coulda been there—he'd a-loved it!

Another highlight was when we got to see a concert of Burmese classical music, part of a tradition that goes back two thousand years. It was performed by a circle-drum player who sat in the center of the orchestra, and the instruments blended as natural as porch chimes in the breeze. It humbles you to hear songs that go back to the days when Christ walked the earth. That's your old-time music. We met the circle-drum player after the show and told him how much we enjoyed his playing. I acted like an interviewer and put a mic up toward his face, asking him what he thought of country music. He said something back to me that sounded so funny, though I have no idea what he said. He may have said, “Get that mic out of my face.” Who knows!

That Eastern tour was more like a pilgrimage, and I felt lucky to be a musician helping to spread good cheer and fellowship in a language that goes beyond borders. I saw how music can reach the nations of the world and bring people together. It's a sacred language, really, the breath of the Creator. And it was a privilege to travel with our little troupe, especially with wise elders like John Jackson, and get to watch them share their gifts. It was a great lesson in what music can do.

G
etting away from my life and seeing the world did me a world of good. The trip was full of show dates and catching planes and carrying luggage and running around, but it was a good kind of busy. Seeing places and meeting people who were so different from me opened my eyes and freed my mind. In those days, there was no Internet or e-mail. We didn't live in a “global” society the way we do now. I was being exposed to cultures that were entirely new to me, and it changed my life. It was also, in many ways, a total break from the reality of my life back home.

Much fun as I had, there was a sense of dread, too. I knew there was a lot of stuff I had to face down once I got back. There was no escaping the reality that my marriage was over.

Near the end of the tour, I got the divorce papers. They came special-delivery airmail to my hotel in New Delhi, and the bad feeling came with them. The life Brenda and I had together had come to an end, but it was still hard to face. Getting the divorce seemed like I'd failed. I was raised to believe a marriage was supposed to last forever. Mom and Dad had been married for decades. They'd had some tough times, but they stayed together. They were still standing. I felt like I'd let them down. Not to mention the guilt I felt over what my divorce would do to my children.

Dad never said, “I told you so,” the way some dads might do in that situation. He said, “I love you, son.” Dad and Mom pledged their love to me more deeply than ever. As far as things with Brenda and I went, the divorce was more a truce than anything. We both wanted peace and civility. There was no call for finger-pointing. Getting married at eighteen years old, we probably jumped into something we weren't ready for. We really didn't know what marriage meant, or what it
could
mean. Marriage is a union ordained by God. We just got lost on our path together. It happens a lot, I guess, and it hurts a lot, too.

The late seventies and early eighties had seen country go pop. . . . But Skaggs re-introduced the backwoods sound, and with an impeccably tight band and clear, snappy bluegrass-influenced productions, his records and live shows came like a breath of fresh air through a stagnant Nashville smog
.

—
Who's Who in New Country Music
, by Andrew Vaughan

His hits testified not only to the new life which Skaggs's singing, arrangements, and production infused into them but also to the fact that these relatively simple songs were as well crafted as those of the more sophisticated Nashville songwriters
.

—
Bluegrass: A History
, by Neil V. Rosenberg

W
hen I got back to Nashville, I hit the ground running. I took meetings with my manager, my music attorney, and Rick at CBS, the company that owned Epic. I needed to get in the studio and start recording my first major-label album,
Waitin' for the Sun to Shine
. How appropriate the title was, given all I was dealing with. My heart was very heavy but hopeful, and I was looking for the best songs I could find. I was working hard in pre-production at my apartment, and thinking about my future.