Success Can’t Spoil Scaggs : Being Back on Top Is Fine, but Country Star Refuses to Let the Charts Dictate His Career

With his “Lovin’ Only Me” a recent No. 1 country hit, and a current album bristling with deserving follow-ups, Ricky Skaggs has a career that clearly is back in full swing.

The bluegrass-infused musician had practically been the first “new traditionalist,” racking up early ‘80s hits and awards despite the Urban-Cowboyed crossover country that then held sway. In the last couple of years, though, it appeared as if the other tradition-minded artists for whom Skaggs had opened the door were beating him to the table. While Randy Travis and others commanded the charts, Skaggs rarely touched the Top 30 after 1986, a stark contrast to his string of 16 Top 10 records between 1982 and 1986, including 10 No. 1 hits.

Skaggs and his eight-piece band will play the Crazy Horse Steak House tonight. Reached last week in the Pacific Northwest between county fair dates--”We’re calling this the Corndog Tour across America,” Skaggs quipped--the Kentucky-born singer/multi-instrumentalist seemed no more elated by his recent hit than he had felt stymied by his slump period. Skaggs says he’s measuring his success by a different scale.

“A career can really eat your lunch, if you start to worry about where you are in the charts, and whether you’re going to work next month,” he said. “That can pull your mind away from everything positive you’re trying to do out on the road, so I just stopped worrying about anything like that and started really trying to focus my life and my attention on the whole reason I’m out here, and try to do something good for somebody while I’m here.”

Skaggs might already sound like a man on a mission, but he was just warming up.

“I know that I’m out here for a reason, to hopefully spread light into a dark world, so to speak. There’s a lot of darkness out there with everything that’s so wrong with the world. There’s a lot of things that are right about it, too, and we try to spread those good positive messages. Here I’m speaking from a Christian background, and I try not to go out as a preacher, but I really try to mean something to somebody’s life somehow. When we leave I hope that it’s made an impact on somebody, and they go home feeling refreshed.

“There’s responsibilities out there when little 3- and 5-year-old kids look up at me, and in their eyes I see they’re looking for a role model or hero kind of figure. I know when I was a kid I needed heroes: the Duke, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris. I’d go see Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Roy Acuff and (Lester) Flatt & (Earl) Scruggs and my eyes would get so big. They made impressions on me, so believe me I take it very seriously, every word that I speak to those kids looking at me out there.”

In his 35 years, Skaggs has gained quite a reputation for taking things seriously. By the age of 5, he had applied himself to the mandolin sufficiently to perform on stage with bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. An equal verve for the guitar, fiddle and banjo saw him through stints with Ralph Stanley, the Country Gentlemen and Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band.

Fronting his own band, Skaggs obstinately faced down skeptics who thought his revved-up-roots approach to country would find no place in the early ‘80s synthetic country scene. Following Skaggs’ success and the subsequent “new traditionalist” victories of Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam and others, now even the slickest holdovers are scampering to display their newfound roots. Skaggs, meanwhile, has kept refining his approach, sometimes driving co-workers to distraction with a perfectionism that has earned him the nickname “Picky Ricky” around Nashville.

The strong negative feelings Skaggs holds about “country that isn’t country” run so counter to his studied politeness as to render him nearly inarticulate on the subject. But he also sees less need to man the trenches against it now.

He said, “I think country music is in the best shape that it’s ever been in. There is a standard sound now that is ‘country’ again, like it was in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. I think with the help of a lot of the country artists that have come after us, everybody’s done their part to secure that, to latch that lid down. There’s room for new sounds and new musicians to come in, but I think there will always be a standard now of excellence, quality and integrity, because I don’t think we younger ones will settle for anything less.”

He thinks the move back to a well-grounded country music has created a more diverse and enduring audience than the “Urban Cowboy” crossover era did.

“We’ve got doctors, lawyers, rocket scientists and brain surgeons, and then we’ve got the Jethro BoDeans and Ma and Pa Kettle, and the little kids. Last night we had some little 14- and 16-year-old girls--the whole front row was lined with them--and they were screaming like it was a rock concert. And they knew the words to the songs.”

When searching for material to record--Skaggs confesses that he is “not a very blessed songwriter”--he said he “looks for things that have a real appeal to younger people. I don’t try to discard the older folks, but I just have a heart for younger people out there, because I feel they are the ones that are hurting so bad right now.

“This one runaway girl had been gone for two or three months and heard (‘Thanks Again’), and bought the record and sent it home to her parents, and that was the first contact she’d had with them.

“It got them talking, and as a result they all got back together. They were sitting in the front row at one of my shows at Wolf Trap near Washington, D.C., and while I was singing that song they were all cuddled up and cryin’ and snottin’. It was wonderful to look out there and see how one little thing you’d done through a song, how it had touched somebody. That’s one of those little nuggets that makes it worthwhile.”

As valuable as he finds such moments, Skaggs said he’s looking to move his career into a slower gear.

“It really gets hard. My wife (Sharon White, of the singing group the Whites) and I both travel on the road and we both hate our lives the way they are. We hate being away from each other, we hate being away from our kids, and we both are really serious about doing something about it, trying to slow our schedules down. I’d like to cut my touring schedule 25 to 30% next year if I can. That would maybe cut it down to 100 days a year.”

Such a cutback could be damaging to his recently revived sales, but, he said, “It’s worth it to me. I don’t care. I mean, I love my fans, and (his label) CBS and radio and the promoters out there, but family comes first. I’ve always put my family second or third, and I really hate that. I’ve got four children now, two of which are 12 and 10--my 5-year-old is about ready to start kindergarten, and Sharon and I have a 3-month-old boy. Every time I come home he’s grown two or three inches.”

Skaggs said it could be two years before he enters the studio again, but he is already collecting songs for a new album. Nothing is set yet, but Skaggs said he has several projects in the works, including some possible cable specials featuring him and his far-flung musical friends (not too many performers have shared stages with both Bill Monroe and Elvis Costello). Even at a slower pace, he said, “it definitely won’t be Boresville around here.”

Ricky Skaggs sings tonight at 7 and 10 at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow Drive, Santa Ana. Tickets: $27.50. Information: (714) 549-1512.