Ricky Skaggs (born 1954) is famous on mandolin, but in the 1970s he was a working fiddler. He played fiddle with Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys, the Country Gentlemen, and J.D. Crowe and the New South, and on session dates for the Seldom Scene. He is the only fiddler on the 1975 New South album known as Rounder 0044, which the Library of Congress added to the National Recording Registry in 2024. His mandolin career has its own page.
Why Skaggs matters
Skaggs shows what a fiddle background gives a bandleader. As a young sideman he could cover fiddle, mandolin, viola, and tenor harmony, and Stanley, the Country Gentlemen, and Crowe hired him for that range. On 0044 he plays fiddle on five tracks and adds viola under his fiddle on two of them. A picker who has held the fiddle chair knows what a band needs from it, and Skaggs carried that knowledge into Kentucky Thunder.
Life and career
Skaggs was born on July 18, 1954, in Louisa, Kentucky, and started on mandolin at age five. When his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, he and his father went to see Earl Taylor play at the Astro Inn, even though Ricky was underage. The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame dates his years of fascination with the fiddle to that time.
In 1970 Ralph Stanley heard Skaggs and his friend Keith Whitley and hired them, and the two joined the Clinch Mountain Boys full time after high school in 1971. Rebel Records credits Skaggs with mandolin, fiddle, and vocals on Stanley’s first Rebel album, Cry From the Cross (1971), beside the band’s veteran fiddler, Curly Ray Cline.
After Stanley, Skaggs took a 40-hour-a-week job with the Virginia Electric and Power Company. An offer to play fiddle with the Country Gentlemen cut it short, and he was soon in the studio with them cutting an album for Vanguard. Living near Washington, D.C., brought session work. He played fiddle and viola on the Seldom Scene’s Old Train (Rebel, 1974) and worked on Tony Rice’s California Autumn (1975). He also released his first solo album, That’s It! (Rebel, 1975).
Late in 1974 he joined J.D. Crowe and the New South. The 1975 Rounder album that came out of that band lists him on fiddle for Some Old Day, Rock Salt and Nails, Sally Goodin, Nashville Blues, and Summer Wages. On Rock Salt and Nails and Summer Wages he played viola too. He then formed Boone Creek with Jerry Douglas, Terry Baucom, and Wes Golding, and later joined Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, where he sang harmony and played mandolin and fiddle. Harris’s 1980 album Roses in the Snow credits him on fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo.
His country hits of the 1980s and his band Kentucky Thunder, formed in 1997, put the mandolin in front. He has won 15 Grammy Awards, and he entered both the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2018.
Playing style
Skaggs came to the fiddle from the Stanley Brothers and Flatt and Scruggs records he grew up on, and he learned it by watching Earl Taylor’s band up close. In a band he played whatever part the song needed. On 0044 he takes the fiddle on the old breakdown Sally Goodin and on Earl Scruggs’s instrumental Nashville Blues, then moves to mandolin and tenor harmony for most of the vocal numbers.
His studio credits show a second habit. He is credited with fiddle and viola on Old Train, and with both instruments on the same two tracks of 0044, so one player filled out a two-part string sound. That is a session player’s skill: hearing the harmony a record needs and supplying it.
Influences and legacy
Skaggs learned from Earl Taylor’s band in Columbus, from Bill Monroe, and from the Stanley Brothers. In Stanley’s band he played beside Curly Ray Cline and Ralph Stanley. In the New South he worked with Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and J.D. Crowe.
As a bandleader he has kept top fiddlers beside him. Kentucky Thunder’s fiddlers have included Bobby Hicks, the Monroe alumnus.
Signature tunes and songs
Uncle Pen Sally Goodin Nashville Blues.
Essential recordings
Cry From the Cross, Ralph Stanley (Rebel, 1971) Old Train, the Seldom Scene (Rebel, 1974) J.D. Crowe and the New South (Rounder, 1975) Roses in the Snow, Emmylou Harris (Warner Bros., 1980)
Awards and honors
Grand Ole Opry member (1982) CMA Entertainer of the Year (1985) Musicians Hall of Fame (2016) International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame (2018) Country Music Hall of Fame (2018) National Medal of Arts (2021) J.D. Crowe and the New South, with Skaggs on fiddle, added to the National Recording Registry (2024) 15 Grammy Awards from 29 nominations
Watch and listen
Skaggs plays fiddle with the Seldom Scene on Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen at the 1978 Shriners Bluegrass Festival. The footage comes from the Appalshop Archive.
What to learn from Skaggs
Learn Uncle Pen on fiddle from the 1978 Seldom Scene clip. Monroe wrote it about his fiddling uncle, Pendleton Vandiver, so the melody sits well on the fiddle, and Skaggs plays it straight with no tricks. The technique to steal is his double duty. Once you know the fiddle break, learn the same break on mandolin, or learn a simple harmony part under it. Skaggs got hired in the 1970s because he could cover more than one chair, and that habit still makes a picker more useful in any band.
Sources
Ricky Skaggs, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum Ricky Skaggs, Wikipedia Cry From the Cross, Rebel Records Old Train, Wikipedia J.D. Crowe and the New South (album), Wikipedia J.D. Crowe and the New South track credits, MusicBrainz data Roses in the Snow, Wikipedia
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more fiddlers. Skaggs played beside Curly Ray Cline in Stanley’s band, and Bobby Hicks later fiddled in Kentucky Thunder. Sam Bush is another mandolin star who came up on the fiddle. Skaggs’s mandolin work is on his mandolin page.