Ricky Skaggs - Reluctant Tele-Master - Ask Zac 51

well hello friends and welcome to another Ask Zac i hope you're doing well today we're going to talk about one of
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my favorite telecaster players and someone that really influenced me a lot
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and uh and uh and i just have a world of respect for the guy and it's Ricky
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Skaggs and i kind of think of him as the reluctant guitar hero or maybe i should
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say to more accurately say the reluctant telecaster hero
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so uh is a great story and a great story about how he ended up playing the telly and uh and
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being the lead player in his band for for years so uh yeah so uh
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or there's a tip jar information in the description if you want to do that all right so Ricky Skaggs
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I'm going to start off by telling a a ridiculous story about the first time i saw Ricky
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Skaggs play so my father was a ford and Nissan dealer and there was and
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of course i grew up in south Texas in a little town called Kingsville so my parents were really cool
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in that they would include us on a lot of business trips uh you know a lot of the other dealers
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when they would go to these meetings you know they wouldn't take their kids uh but my parents would and so i really
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appreciate that so thanks mom and dad uh so on one of these
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was uh it was in Nashville and uh you know and so we all you know flew
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up to Nashville and we stayed at the Opryland hotel which it was much smaller at that point because this was about 1985.
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and we went there and i just have to say at this point i was not playing the guitar yet
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and i was not really into music really i mean i was hearing the music that was on the school bus and maybe some stuff my
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mom listened to more classical music my dad would listen to some country music
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but uh we tend to not play a lot of music in the in in the house so
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we get to Nashville and uh yeah we're we're told that we're gonna
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go to the uh we're gonna go to the opry and i had no idea what that was i didn't
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know what the grand ole opry was here i am around 12 and uh
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oh i didn't know if this was going to be an opera or what what kind of thing it was going to be so anyways we go and of course the
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Opryland hotel is right next to you know where you know the opry house and so we took a little you know tram
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shuttle thing that took us from the Opryland hotel with the other you know ford dealers and we got got to
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the opry and we sit down and here's this you know i mean this is a pretty good good-sized
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auditorium and there's this big wooden stage and there's this you know kind of barn looking
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you know thing and wood and such and like what is this and then all of a sudden it starts up and there's
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you know clogging and square dancers and uh and uh and this guy comes out
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uh and he's got a mullet and a purple telecaster and uh
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and he's all yeah you know i'm Ricky Skaggs and these are the skagetts and i thought that was the stupidest
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thing i've ever seen in my life and it didn't matter that the music was great and you know they did uncle pen
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and probably love's gonna get you or something like that and anyway uh his musicality and talent was
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completely lost on me and the only thing that stuck with me was the fact that he said i'm ricky
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skaggs and these are the skagettes which of course you know uh
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so i went around for the rest of the trip that we were in the nashville area everywhere we went you know i would mutter you know the
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side of my mouth i don't like these kegs and these are the skagets and finally after wearing my father out
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who was pretty patient he looked at me in the eye and he said son if you say that again i'm going to
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pop you in the chest and it wasn't five minutes later i said
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it again and he gave me one those quick whap you know right as we were walking side by side and he gave me a whack to
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the chest and uh and uh i was like oh and i stopped i didn't say ricky skaggs
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and the skagettes again until now so
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anyway fast forward a couple years i start playing the guitar and i start getting you know serious about it i'm
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originally kind of more into blues and you know rock and roll and stevie ray vaughn and the t-birds and stuff
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like that i started listening to clapton through clapton i hear albert lee on the just one night album
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and then i start doing research on albert lee and found out you know records that he'd played on and started
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buying those well i found out he played with this guy named ricky skaggs and i was like wait a
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second didn't i see that guy and uh so i started buying ricky skaggs records
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and all of a sudden i found out whoa this guy is a heavy duty you know guitar player mandolin you know
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plays mandolin and fiddle produces his own records uh you know i was performed on a bunch
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of the emilu and hot band records even before he joined the hot band
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uh you know amazing harmony singer uh yeah so i started buying ricky skaggs
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albums and i quickly went from being a naysayer to uh uh
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you know a fan and uh yeah so i'm gonna give a little bit of
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uh you know a history of ricky skagg so this is what you need to know about ricky skaggs so
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ricky skaggs was born in eastern kentucky and uh you know grew up around bluegrass
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and uh you know originally you know started playing mandolin then he added you know fiddle and acoustic guitar to that um
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played in some pretty you know important bluegrass bands including you know playing with ralph
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stanley along with keith whitley of course another um the late keith whitley a very important
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country singer uh you get to the jd crow and the new south which is
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very seminal and very important bluegrass you know record where it was kind of
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pushing the boundaries it wasn't new grass but they were doing uh you know they were doing like gordon lightfoot songs
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and different different things like that and you had tony rice as the lead guitarist and lead vocalist
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you had ricky singing high harmony and you had and mandolin and fiddle and you had uh jerry douglas
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playing dobro and of course the great jd crow playing uh you know playing banjo
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and that was an amazing record then ricky uh started getting kind of
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interested in other instrumentation and uh kind of country in rock and roll
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instrumentation and he had a group called boone creek and uh that had uh jerry douglas in it
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and that started kind of using some electric bass and things like that and also at the same time
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he's starting to work with emily harris and at first he's just playing on her records he's not touring with her
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but then rodney crowl who was the original kind of rhythm guitarist and harmony
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singer in the hot band left because he had gotten a solo deal with warner brothers and so ricky skaggs was was called on
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to to be the new harmony singer and with that you know ricky
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took the band in uh a different direction because you know here's this
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died in the wool you know bluegrass guy and you know he's such a great you know
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mandolin fiddle player acoustic guitar player and you know he's playing with this
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incredible band you know originally when he joined the hot band albert lee was the lead guitar player and then later was
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frank ricard uh you know and you have emory gordy and john ware and hank devito and he's
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you know these great great players uh also during that time
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uh ricky's you know gotten a a solo deal with sugar hill which is a bluegrass
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label and uh let me see if i can uh find one of these guys here it is
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so and and this has a you know he has a it has a great great look here so you
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get this album that's called sweet temptation and uh this is you know ricky skaggs
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under the influence of the hot band and so the hot band plays on this well some of them do
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and uh you know and it has kind of some bluegrass tunes and it has more country tunes like sweet temptation which is a
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merle travis song but then it has things like cabin home on a hill uh so this is a great album albert
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albert lee plays lead guitar on it buddy evans plays steel uh also you know he uh i'm just going to
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do a quick mention of this this is skaggs and rice this is just ricky skaggs and tony rice
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just singing together and then of course tony playing acoustic guitar and ricky playing mandolin
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this is an amazing record and i highly recommend it all right then
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let's see so ricky's in the hot band uh and so he's learning about drums he's learning about production from
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brian o'hearn um he's learning about electric guitar he's learning about electric bass he's
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learning about all these things and he's learning about country music and this kind of new hybrid
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rockabilly folky country stuff that you know that emily and the
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hot band are doing uh because it's not straight up you know country music it's kind of you know
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charged up and with a you know hot telecaster player you know whether it was james burton or albert lee
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so he uh he finally leaves you know the the hot band and
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uh because he gets a a record deal with uh with cbs or epic you know which is now i guess
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you know you'd call it sony well while he was touring in with emmylou he found his
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own telecaster player to play in his band and his name was ray flack so what's
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what's interesting is ricky kind of went from the hot band to a solo deal and he basically
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recreated his own version of the hot band and so you know ray flack was his alb albert
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lee you know compared to you know the hot band and ray is a very worthy successor of uh of
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of albert lee and uh so so he puts together you know this band
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and they start playing you know his version of this hybrid music where it's got this
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charged rockabilly folk country thing but then also you have the bluegrass
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thing from him and so you have this whole new style of music it's like electric
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bluegrass you know country and uh and his his albums were
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amazing and groundbreaking and they called him a neo-traditionalist and all sorts of things like that and he won
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awards and uh you know and his band was amazing he always
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has i mean to this day he's always had the most amazing you know players in his band and
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here's kind of where we get to uh you know the title of the video and and kind of
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the thrust of this so there's footage on on on youtube of ricky playing on austin
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city limits with ray flack in the band and ray's playing his old 68 tele
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with a white pick guard and looks like he's using the lab series amp with an echoplex on it
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and and the band is just smoking and whenever ray takes a solo it's
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almost like fireworks are going off and ray is just really on his game and
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uh it's great video clips and i i highly recommend that you you know go and track those down
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but uh you know you know i i just i don't know how to
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you know i'm gonna say this the best way as possible um because i love ray flax playing and
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the times i've been around have been great but evidently he could be difficult to be around at times
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and evidently you know rey and ricky weren't getting along and so
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they parted ways which was unfortunate because that was a great uh
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it was a great combination you know ricky playing acoustic guitar and
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mandolin and uh and fiddle and even playing uh a mando caster which was a little
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electric telecaster that looked like well it was an electric mandolin that looked like a telecaster and had a
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bender on it that joe glazer made he made the whole instrument and they had such great interplay
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but uh you know they parted ways and then you know what ricky has
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said in interviews was albert lee was playing with eric clapton at the time and he couldn't afford james burton and
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there wasn't anyone out there that played in that style so again this is the early 1980s
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and there aren't a bunch of you know hot you know telecaster players out there at
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that point it's just it hasn't become the thing that it became later on and uh so
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ricky faced with that thing with that situation he decided you know and his apparently
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his wife sharon uh you know kind of pushed him on this was you can do this yourself and so
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he had played a little bit of electric guitar you know on uh on highways and
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heartaches i think there was a song or two where he played some string bender kind of feels on a slower tune
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but you know he hadn't really played telecaster out in front of anyone and he took it upon
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himself to go back and learn the you know the albert lee guitar parts
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that were on some of his you know songs and also the uh the ray flack parts that were on a lot of his hits and
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so he learned those guitar parts and he had you know he had a telly you know with a
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string bender on it and uh and he you know and at the time
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you know ray had been using this lab series l9 amp which is a transistorized amp that
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had a built-in compressor and had a 15-inch ev and he you know played through one of
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those and uh and he pulled it off and he's you know in the interviews he's indicated you
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know he was really kind of holding his breath and you know just trying to make it through but he ended up doing a really great job
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and he ended up being a great teleplayer and i think what made him a great player
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was that he hadn't you know he one he had had the example of he had been
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in a band with albert lee two he had had ray fleck in his band he had done sessions with
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james burton and all these other you know great players and so he knew that and he knew about tone
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on top of that he was a great musician already he already had you know fiddle
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guitar and mandolin under his belt and and knew you know melodies and good
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playing and such and so he he took all of that and he was
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able to uh you know create a guitar style that was very much himself i mean in some ways it was
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based on what albert lee and flack had done on his records but also he just kind of had his own thing where
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he just played he played very melodic he played hooks and he never just played useless look at
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me look at me look at me notes he always played things that were fitting and kind of bluesy sounding and so
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my hat's off to ricky skaggs for uh you know becoming a reluctant telecaster hero for uh you
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know stepping up and uh and learning how to play uh telecaster and for you know learning how
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to get a good sound on one and he certainly did so this is a good point to uh
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uh talk about you know his uh his tone and and kind of the guitars that he used
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especially in the 1980s so uh the guitar he was seen the most playing was a purple uh
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glazer made uh telecaster type style guitar and so it had a it had a very flame
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maple neck and talking to joe he was able to get flame maple from from paul reed smith at that time in the
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in the early to mid 1980s and he said it was unique because it was more stable than most flame maple you
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know a lot of flame maple would kind of move around a lot and so he was able to get some really highly flame maple that was that was
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stable so you have this very flame maple neck and then you had this uh you know purple
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body that was single bound and you had a white pick guard had a you know this type of goto bridge and the
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string bender like this one and then you had you know the back pickup which at that point was an el
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nico 2 pro and the you know by seymour duncan the front pickup was the vintage
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uh tele you know rhythm pickup and then later on a middle pickup was
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was added which was of course the strat stack which uh you know is also
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you know like brett mason's guitar except that on on ricky's it has the uh you know the blade is showing through and it has a white cover instead of the
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red cover like like brent mason's so he had that guitar
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and back in the day he used uh ghs boomers 10 through 46 and those are uh those are pure nickel
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with a hex core and he had acrylic nails on these two fingers
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and most of the time used a light gauge pick and so if you listen to him i mean he really pops the hell out of
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the strings and uh and it and it's a really neat sound so you kind of have this
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e you know kind of lighter pick sound but then he'll pop the the strings a lot with those acrylic
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nails and it's a really really uh neat sound so i've made a spotify
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playlist of course and it's really neat hearing him on live from london where he's playing those
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songs that ray flack had played lead on and then you get to hear his version of that which is
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you know which is great also as far as amps he was uh ricky you know
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back at that time was using a lab series l9 which was this gibson made moog designed amp that
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and i owned one actually owned two at one point they're really neat amps they have a
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really cool compressor on it and from talking to ricky's guitar tech you know years ago
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he would set it to where the compressor would come on when he would pop the b string and bend it and so that was kind
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of the way he it lights up so that that's the way he would set it if you have one of those amps
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and uh yeah it has a really unique tone control section has a fat sound
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the ev the 15 15-inch ev is a big part of the sound and those are really cool amps and if
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you want the ricky skaggs ray flax sound that that you know a good tele and then that lab series l9 is a big part of it
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and uh that'll that'll get you there and it has a good sounding you know reverb on it kind of fender-y
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and uh effects wise most of the time he would use a roland space echo
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and sometimes he put a little chorus on it like the thing i played at the beginning was uh you know just a little you know
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kind of take on uh walking in jerusalem which it was cool because he was playing on the neck
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pickup and it had some chorus which i'm assuming came from the roland you know space echoes probably like the
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501 or 300 series whichever and uh and then had some slap back on
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there and then of course the compressor on the lab series amp and uh and that was that was kind of you
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know his sound you know of course most time he would he would play on the on the bridge pick i mean he didn't have chorus on all the
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time but uh he played some some really really cool stuff especially in those those mid
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80s you know records where he was the the lead player later on he started having either you know steve gibson or
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albert lee or brent mason you know play electric on his records but uh i really enjoyed
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his uh his lead playing uh in on the album my father's son which was
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about 90 or 91 he covered only daddy to the only daddy that'll walk the line i never can't say
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that straight for some reason but uh on that he kind of did some really cool string bender stuff
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and i'll play a little bit of that so the the song's in e
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[Music] and when it goes to the four chord which you know which is an a
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he plays this kind of partial a this
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and and then he act he activates the bender so you get this kind of thing
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[Music] and then you get this next chord shape
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that he plays which is an a9 [Music]
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and then when you activate the bender you get it it takes the the fifth up to a six so it kind of
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turns it into a uh an a13 i guess
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and then he goes up and plays you know this kind of a7 where the b bender takes it up to the to
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the tonic notes you get this so here i'll just kind of play the whole
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[Music] thing
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that's a a cool uh you know thing that he did on uh only daddy that'll walk the line
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and uh i i loved his telecaster playing i loved his his bbender work his
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his his telecaster playing was was fairly dependent on the b bender and he wouldn't really want to
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play electric guitar unless he had a a bender on it to the point that i think he was playing at a
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paul reed smith event and uh brent mason was going to be there
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too and and uh paul wanted you know uh brent mason and ricky skaggs to to jam together
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and uh and ricky said only if you'll build me an electric guitar with a b bender on it and he did and of course
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paul reed smith did because he's that kind of guy i've i've seen ricky even have a
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acoustic with a b bender on it uh um you know some different a loudon and maybe even a paul reed
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smith acoustic that had a had a b bender on it so very very neat stuff
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uh let's see one thing i i wanted to talk about uh oh in the last
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couple of years uh you know you know ricky has played electric again and
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i think one of the really neat things about ricky skaggs is he's kind of reinvented himself over and over again
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and it's kind of like he was the bluegrass guy as a kid he was the
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kind of blue grassy side man with with emmy lou and then kind of went into country music then he's playing this
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country hybrid music then he's a telecaster guy you know then you know in the mid 90s as
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his kind of country career started kind of winding down and people weren't paying as much attention to him he went back to
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bluegrass and he really became one of the standard bearers of you know of acoustic you know bluegrass
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music and uh and you know and he gave his his career a whole new you know whole new boost
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and uh i think what's been cool in the last decade or so is that he has done uh
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he has done he started you know kind of playing some electric again so you know this uh poster on the wall
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is from when ricky was playing uh with his wife sharon white and with rya
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cooter and on that he was playing electric guitar and so it was really cool you know of course i was at that show
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and at one other show that was in knoxville and uh at that point he was playing his 57
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telly which it's been painted red uh joe glazer painted it in what he
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calls ricky red it's got a pearloid pick guard on it and it's got the goto bridge and the v
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bender you know like like this guitar and uh and uh he doesn't play through the lab
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series amp anymore he's been playing through either a blackface pro reverb or a brown
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vibralux i think the brown vibralux is the influence of gordon kennedy so i know he really likes
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that amp and of course the two of them have worked together but it's it's been cool to see you know ricky playing electric again after all
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these years and he's still a great great uh tele player and and does uh you know a lot of
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a lot of cool things so uh i just wanted to show this so this is
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another uh this is another neat ricky skaggs album um
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this one was recorded partially with the hot band in the 70s and then partially uh with his current
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country band later on in the 80s and what this was is that he basically had an album together
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when he got his deal with cbs but sugar hill owned these tracks and it wasn't until later that
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there you know you can see this says sugar hill and epic on there that they released so this uh this is a neat album and it has both
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ray flack and albert lee playing on it not on the same cuts but uh you know they're don't cheat in
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our hometown is some really cool b bender stuff by albert lee honey won't you open that door more b
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bender stuff by albert um i'm head over heels in love with you that's another
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you know great uh albert plays tons of solos on that and uh you get to hear a little bit of uh ray flack on uncle pen he plays a
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cool uh you know a little little solo on there so that's a
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that's a favorite so that's uh that's kind of the the deal
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with ricky skaggs uh the thing at the beginning that i played uh was from uh you know walking in
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jerusalem and i i love that you know little thing and so i guess this will be kind of the the lesson thing besides of course
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playing the i was showing you that b bender stuff but you have this um i guess i'll
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i won't put i won't put the chorus on but i'll just [Music]
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so you have this you know kind of you know basically playing an a chord and playing
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an alternating bass
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[Music]
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yeah i really love that snappy thing and he would pop it really hard
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ah i'm playing one more time a little [Music]
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slower [Music]
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so
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all right so go out and listen to some ricky skaggs great telecaster player i listen to my spotify playlist
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and uh you know learn pop the hell out of the strings and uh just have a good time because
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remember i'm reiki skags and these are the sky gats all right see you next time bye