Skaggs Family Records 6989050052



I can’t remember the first time I heard Ricky Skaggs. It might well have been in the late 1970s, his SWEET TEMPTATION album. The Whites were a little earlier, their DOWN HOME FOLKS album of 1972. With both Ricky and the Whites, the tangible thing that connected with me was the honesty and pure passion that came shining through the music that they made. Sharon White, along with sister Cheryl and father Buck, have been making family music for more than 50 years. Ricky and Sharon have been a married couple since 1981. Though they have been singing together for years—both on and off stage—and even enjoyed commercial success in 1987 with their Love Can’t Ever Get Better Than This duet hit, HEARTS LIKE OURS is their first duet album. It’s been a long, long wait, but it’s been worthwhile. Sometimes the best things in life are those that are allowed to develop over the years, and that is very much the case here. There is something very natural about this album, it strikes a chord because it’s easy to relate to; feels like it’s something that’s part of your collective knowledge.

Detractors are likely to complain that it sounds dated. Maybe it is out-of-step with what is happening in today’s country music, but every so often, I believe that we need to reel country music in, and take it much closer to the mother-lode, those rural roots that are the very bedrock of all that country music should stand for. Ricky and Sharon do that throughout this delightful and uplifting collection of songs. The music is an inspirational blend of country, folk, bluegrass and gospel, characterised by down-home harmonies, outstanding musical arrangements and skilled musicianship played out with the kind of passion and conviction borne out of complete confidence and belief in what they are doing.

They have chosen material from some of the finest country tunesmiths including Leslie Satcher, Paul Overstreet, Don Schlitz, Wayland Patton, Bob DiPiero, Keith Sewell plus singers Connie Smith, Marty Stuart and Barbara Fairchild. Surprisingly, this project leans more towards mainstream country, rather than bluegrass. Not today’s country mainstream, rather the kind of music that would’ve been considered ‘country’ in the 1980s. They turn in a revived rendition of Love Can’t Ever Get Better Than This, giving the song a Cajun feel with Andy Leftwich’s fiddle, and Jeff Taylor’s accordion very much to the fore. Sharon White takes the lead on the gospel-styled When I’m Good And Gone and the plaintive I Was Meant To Love You. She sings like a hillbilly angel and the band plays with breathtaking delicacy. Ricky steps up to handle Forever’s Not Long Enough, a superbly solid vocal performance which is best described as clean, pure, innocent country—which of course means it has no place on today’s country radio. They duet passionately on Townes Van Zandt’s If I Needed You, a song that I never tire of hearing, despite the dozens of versions I have in my collection. This is one of the very best.

Ricky and Sharon’s blend is refreshingly humble and unostentatious throughout. The songs hit on all levels as you absorb the serenity, sentiment and feelings of the human psyche contained within. They are songs that penetrate right to the heart, that envelop the senses and charm the soul. A pure delight from start to finish.

www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com