Ricky Skaggs Quotations

We started the label basically to do roots-type music, whether it be Ricky Skaggs or, say, the Whites, or anybody that I feel has a heart for roots music and no real market or label that will give them an opportunity to do something like that.

With the name and the recognition that we've had for the last 15 years here in the business, I really think that we can make a difference and just let people know that, hey, bluegrass is cool, it's hip, and it's awesome, and if it's done in a great way and a great presentation, I don't know who wouldn't like it.

When I came here it wasn't that I was anti-Music Row, but it was like I was going against the grain of what everybody on Music Row was doing, and that's what has made me successful.

My dad was a guitar player, and he sang. He knew what he liked about music. He had a great memory, and he could show me things.

He was listening to a lot of jazz and a lot of horn players. He was just real open with his playing and went places musically that other musicians weren't going. He would break out a whole vocabulary of licks that nobody else was doing on the fiddle.

I think the country as a whole is embracing this music more than it ever has.

It doesn't matter if you stick the name 'bluegrass' on it. I think people call things bluegrass that I wouldn't necessarily call bluegrass, but what they're calling country music today I'm not sure that I would call country music. But I love music and I try to encourage people.

We'd like to invite you to become our newest member,

This was sweet to his ears. This was what pulled me away from my toys.

Big Mon - The Songs Of Bill Monroe,

There's a great Scripture about counting the cost before you start building the house, ... I think that's a big part of the problem. Where's the bottom end? Well, it fell out.

These albums last forever, not just my lifetime but my children's lifetime. So it's important to me to make a good product. And when I put Skaggs Family Records on it, I want it to be the kind of quality that I'm proud of and the kind of quality that people have come to expect from my records.

The symphony gets the benefit for it as well. I've never seen a bad review on one of these shows.

That's the good thing about what we're doing playing bluegrass. It doesn't matter one way or the other whether country radio plays it or not.

I've got tapes that I'm so thankful that my father made - old reel-to-reel tapes. I've got a ton of those things at home. He kept those like fine diamonds, I mean he kept them, you know, in a box and was very, very careful of them, you know.

I try to keep my heart and myself available for those little, 'God moments,' are what I call them, where someone calls the office and says, 'Would Ricky be interested in doing this?'

I mean, I could tell that I really had... a precious gift. And I'm so glad that I have followed through with it and really used that gift and nurtured it, honed it, made it sharp and tried to use it as a tool now to make music and to make a living for my family.

The difference between me and the newer artists is that I have the history with the architects, the masters that started the music. I know where the music came from.

I just want to keep playing music and keep recording. I feel like my best days are ahead.

I've had a couple of guys that I've had co-produce records with me through my career, and it's fun to work with a co-producer.

That's kind of the mission statement for the label: to try to do great music that touches people's hearts.

I just remember standing there, singing with the headphones on and the strings playing, just how wonderful that felt. But we so rarely got to go out and do it. Obviously, we don't carry a 70-80-piece orchestra with us when we do shows.

When Jack White called and wanted me to do a video and play mandolin with The Raconteurs, I didn't know anything about The Raconteurs at that time.

After 'Mosaic,' I think a lot of people didn't know what my next record was going to be. And that's what I love. I just love doing music because I'm not going to follow the patterns and formulas of Music Row.

I've always moved by my heart. I've moved by the spirit of what I feel was right for me next. I always pray and ask God: 'What's the next thing? What am I supposed to do next?

The fall is my favorite time of year. I love the colors. The sun is out, you get warmth on your skin but there's the coolness of the breeze. It's really comfortable.

I hope you came out to hear some bluegrass music. If you didn't, we're both in the wrong place.

I'm not a goody-two-shoes. I'm just a father with four children.

We should give the Lord the excellence He deserves in everything we do.

I hate negative songs; I won't sing them. It doesn't matter if it's sold 2 million more albums.

I don't feel like I've nearly got to the place where I'm ready to even slow down.

I feel like have a lot of music left to cut in my life.

I just love to have fun with music, and try to find songs that say something that people want to hear.

I look back to when I got divorced in the late 1970s. When that happened, I was so broken up. After that, I decided to seek God for my life and my next marriage.

I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.

I had some good teachers. One of the greatest teachers I've had is bluegrass music: going back and listening to Bill Monroe's music, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs. When I was with Ralph Stanley I learned a lot from him.

Ive got tapes that Im so thankful that my father made - old reel-to-reel tapes. Ive got a ton of those things at home. He kept those like fine diamonds, I mean he kept them, you know, in a box and was very, very careful of them, you know.

Even with the sun beaming down on me I'm not sweating in my mind. I'm not sweating in my heart or in my career.

Do excellent work for Christ. So that's my heart. It's always been. And I want to be the best I can be. I want to make a difference in my generation.

Country's hip; it's cool music.

I always try to entertain folks with good clean fun and stories from my youth.

Maybe you're going to a concert thinking you're not going to hear anything but music. But you may walk away from there with an answer to a problem that you're carrying around with you that you didn't think you were going to hear about.

Great music is great music, period.

Country and western is ignored by the intellectuals. They don't look at it as an art form. They think it's just somebody sitting on his couch singing about his life.

Music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

When I hear bluegrass today, I hear so many new sounds in it. It's almost like country music in a way.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

What I have seen in the past 10 years of traveling- performing at a church one day and a casino the next- is that a lot of people in the church want to be entertained, and people in casinos want to be ministered to. That's hard to understand, but I see a hunger in the world that I don't see in the church.

There's art in rhythm playing. Just find it. Make your own art. Find your place, and when it's your time to solo, it's your time to shine.

I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail.