WEEKEND AT HOME MUSIC Skaggs' picking keeps tradition ticking
Russ DeVault
* 01/21/99
The Atlanta Constitution
(Copyright 1999 The Atlanta Journal / The Atlanta Constitution)
* BLUEGRASS "Ancient Tones" Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder.
Skaggs Family Records / DNA. 11 tracks. Grade: B+ The verdict:
Great, by anyone's standards but his own.
Ricky Skaggs modestly says he's "just trying to make a living"
* from bluegrass music, but fans of his fast flat-picking and high
lonesome sound safely assume the money's secondary to him. An
accomplished childhood player who tired of touring and retired ---
briefly --- at age 19, Skaggs, 44, deftly carries the driving,
often-syncopated sound perfected by Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley,
two of his several idols, toward the next century. Solidly classical
are the "Ancient Tones" on "How Mountain Girls Can Love" and "I
Believe in You Darling." At the same time, a lovely new instrumental
("Connemara") and a fresh tune about the old disasters of the heart
and mines ("Coal Minin' Man") prove perfection-chasing Skaggs and his
* powerful Kentucky Thunder band, up for two bluegrass Grammys when the
awards are made Feb. 24, can generate as well as replicate.
