| Skaggs pays respects to late father with new CD |
| Music - Music |
| Written by admin |
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Ricky Skaggs doesn't mind saying so. Before he was a first-class picker, he was a first-class brat.
The 55-year-old country legend cringes when he remembers his sometimes petulant attitude as a child. As a young boy, he'd act up as his father — Hobert Skaggs, a soft-spoken welder and musician — tried to teach him how to play the mandolin.
"I'd get mad and didn't want to play, or I thought I had it right and he'd say I didn't," Skaggs recalled. "I'd be a smart aleck and say something, and I regretted it so much. Later, I apologized to my dad so much for my strong-headedness."
Now, Skaggs is offering much more than an apology. On his new CD, "Songs My Dad Loved," Skaggs pays homage to his late father, who died in 1996. The disc, released Tuesday, is a collection of songs Hobert Skaggs sang around the house, tunes like Ralph Stanley's "Little Maggie" and the Louvin Brothers' "What Is a Home Without Love."
Skaggs plays every instrument (mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and piano) and sings every note. He keeps most of the arrangements simple, just as he and his father used to play them.
"My dad never played for a living," Skaggs says. "He could easily have sang or played with Bill Monroe. He was that good. But he wanted to stay with his family and work to where he could be home on the weekends."
As a young man, Hobert Skaggs sang and played guitar in a duo with his brother on mandolin. After his brother died in World War II, Hobert vowed that if any of his kids showed an aptitude for music, he'd buy them an instrument.
People often ask me what is my greatest collaboration in my years in music, and I've always said my deepest collaboration was with the Grateful Dead. But now I have to say it is with Ricky Skaggs and the Grateful Dead."
In many ways, Skaggs is living his father's dream, and he's grateful that his dad got to see his success.
But as he's tried to help his own children in music and in life, he's discovered that he's not the teacher his dad was.
"No way," Skaggs says shaking his head, "my dad had the patience of Job."
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