Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
Honoring the Fathers of Bluegrass: Tribute to 1946 and 1947 (Skaggs Family)
ESSENTIAL "Mother's Only Sleeping"
The cover of his new record shows Ricky Skaggs posed in a striking evocation of Bill Monroe, but this is not a Monroe tribute per se. Rather, Skaggs is "honoring the fathers" - not simply the father - of bluegrass: the version of Monroe's group, the Bluegrass Boys, that came into being when Lester Flatt and especially Earl Scruggs (with his phenomenal, nonpareil banjo style) joined the band in 1945. That lineup lasted less than three years but in that short time quickly honed a completely unprecedented sound. Skaggs and his band (along with a guest appearance by Scruggs, the only one of those fathers still alive) are paying tribute to that moment and its result: the birth of bluegrass music. The 12 songs here all come from that band's repertoire and recordings. Skaggs has recorded many of them before, but for this project he has consciously emulated the arrangements, tempos, solos, and ever-present high-lonesome harmonies of the originals. Combined with Kentucky Thunder's typically fine playing, the result is superb musical pedagogy. [Stuart Munro]
