i. Noah Skaggs
ii. Isaiah Skaggs
Source: Country singer Ricky Skaggs was born in 1954 in Kentucky, where he started his career as a bluegrass superstar. As a child, Skaggs fostered his talent for music by harmonizing with his mother's singing and taking mandolin lessons. After performing country music throughout the '70s in Tennessee, Skaggs made his major label debut in 1981. From there, Skaggs' career skyrocketed with several No. 1 country albums, including the popular album Country Boy.
Singer and musician Ricky Lee Skaggs was born on July 18, 1954, in Cordell, Kentucky, a small Appalachian town along the Big Sandy River near the West Virginia border. His mother, Dorothy, and his father, Hobert, a welder, were both passionate music lovers with a particular taste for bluegrass. Skaggs quickly adopted his parents' musical tastes. "They loved Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers," he recalled. "That was their favorite bluegrass groups. I grew up listening to them because my folks loved 'em so much. And I got to where I dug it too."
Skaggs also inherited his parents' musical talent. One day, when the boy was only 3 years old, his father noticed that he was harmonizing with his mother singing across the house as he played with his toys. Before he turned 4, he was singing harmony parts with his mother at church and family gatherings. At the age of 5, he began taking mandolin lessons from his father. Hobert Skaggs had only taught his son a few chords when he left town for a work trip, and when he returned two weeks later, he discovered that Ricky had taught himself various chord progressions and was effortlessly singing along while he played.
By the age of 6, Skaggs had become something of a local celebrity because of his prodigious musical talents. That year he went to see Bill Monroe, the Father of Bluegrass, perform in Martha, Kentucky, and the crowd insisted that "Little Ricky Skaggs" get up onstage and perform. Monroe, happy to oblige, placed his own mandolin around Skaggs' neck and watched in awe as the youngster played and sang with skill and poise far beyond his years.
In 1961, when Skaggs was still only 7 years old, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, home of the Grand Ole Opry, so that he could grow up in the nerve center of bluegrass and country music. Later that year, Skaggs made his professional debut playing the mandolin (with the famous bluegrass band Flatt and Scruggs) on Martha White's syndicated television show; he earned $52.50 for his performance.
In 1969, Skaggs befriended a young guitarist and singer named Keith Whitley, a fellow Kentuckian, and the two of them started a band called the East Kentucky Mountain Boys. They mostly performed covers of songs by the Clinch Mountain Boys, the famous bluegrass band headed by brothers Carter and Ralph Stanley. One night in 1970, Skaggs and Whitley went to see the Clinch Mountain Boys perform in West Virginia, but the band showed up late so the club owner invited Skaggs and Whitley onstage to perform instead. "I walked in," Ralph Stanley remembered, "and these two boys were singing the Stanley Brothers' music better than the Stanley Brothers."
A year later, the Stanley Brothers invited both men to join the Clinch Mountain Boys. From 1971 to 1974, Skaggs performed and recorded with the band while also releasing a 1972 album with Whitley entitled Second Generation Bluegrass on the small label Rebel Records. In 1974, Skaggs left the Clinch Mountain Boys to join the Country Gentlemen, another bluegrass band, and in 1975 he and Whitley teamed up again on the single "That's It."
After briefly performing with his own band, Boone Creek, in 1977 the great bluegrass singer Emmylou Harris invited Skaggs to join her Hot Band; his playing was a driving force behind the breakthrough success of her 1980 album Roses in the Snow. Harris also sang on Skaggs' 1979 solo album Sweet Temptation, which, while not commercially successful, marked Skaggs' transition to a more mainstream country sound. He traded in the banjo for tap drums and electric bass and featured fuller vocal harmonies while still maintaining strong elements of bluegrass.
Ricky Skaggs is familiar to anyone who has followed country music over the last twenty years. But many may not know that his musical roots reach back much farther. Skaggs, who began playing the mandolin, fiddle and guitar around the age of five, joined Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys on the mandolin in his late teens. He played short stints with such groundbreaking groups as the Country Gentlemen, J.D. Crowe and the New South and his own group Boone Creek before moving to Nashville in 1980 to try his luck in country music.
Refusing to give up his love of bluegrass completely became an important part of Skaggs' country image and earned him the respect of his peers and fans as he garnered 12 number one hits on Billboard's Top 20; one of these was a remake of Bill Monroe's "Uncle Pen." It was the traditionalist in him that also caused Skaggs to come back to bluegrass in the late 1990s. Today, Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder are preserving the traditional sounds of Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers, while sharing Skaggs' own brand of contemporary bluegrass.
Ricky Skaggs had a life filled with music, beginning as a prodigy singing solos in the Free Will Baptist Church. His dad bought him a pawnshop mandolin when he
was 5, taught him the three basic chords, and every weekend, Ricky and his dad would gather at the local grocery store where other musicians gathered to play.
When Bill Monroe performed at the high school in Martha, Kentucky, Ricky and his parents attended, and the crowd repeatedly requested Monroe to call up little
Ricky Skaggs to play and sing. Monroe adjusted the strap of his mandolin to fit Ricky and he performed the Osborne Brothers' hit Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man,
to tremendous applause. Ricky traveled with his parents around Kentucky performing as the Skaggs Family. When he was 7, they moved to Nashville in hopes
of getting him a spot on the Grand Ole Opry, but management said he was too young. He did appear on the Flatt & Scruggs TV show, earning $52.50. After two
years, the family moved back to Kentucky and Ricky continued to sharpen his skills.
When Ricky was playing fiddle with his dad at a talent contest in Estill, Kentucky, he met Keith Whitley, who was also performing. Neither won, but they
became friends and started performing together. When they went to see Ralph Stanley perform at a local club, they ended up on stage because Stanley's bus
had broken down. Stanley came in while Whitley and Skaggs were performing and was so impressed that he invited them to join him onstage, and asked Ricky to
join his Clinch Mountain Boys in 1970, when he was 15.
After stints with several groups, Ricky formed his own Bluegrass group, Boone Creek, recording two albums with the band before joining Emmylou Harris' Hot
Band. While working with Harris, Ricky recorded a solo album for Sugar Hill on which he broke new ground by mixing Bluegrass and Country. Ricky began to seek a
major label, but was turned down by every label in Nashville for being "too Country." He was given a shot by CBS label Epic in 1981 and he convinced them to
let him produce his own album. The album proved fans were ready to return to the roots of Country and Bluegrass by producing four charted singles.
In 1982, Ricky picked up the "Male Vocalist of the Year" award and the Horizon Award from the CMA. The ACM named him "New Male Vocalist" and Ricky fulfilled a
lifelong dream when he was invited to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Ricky was hailed as the leader of the "New Traditionalist" movement and he set
new standards for live performances.
Ricky's career has continued to be sensationally successful, with a string of top chart hits and Certified Gold and Platinum albums. He has continued to fulfill his mission to bring Bluegrass to a new generation, also taking his traditional brand of Country music to England, Ireland and Sweden. He has been recognized for his musicianship by his fans and the music industry, earning major awards and accolades along the way.
Recordings include:
Don't Get Above Your Raisin'
Heartbroke
I Wouldn't Change You If I Could
Highway 40 Blues
Country Boy
Uncle Pen
The Whites
The Whites: L-R: Cheryl, Buck and Sharon White |
Patty Matt Goza White - Deceased: Formerly of The Whites |
Source: The Whites have been a part of the Grand Ole Opry family for almost 30 years and have been showcasing their own family harmony as a professional stage act for nearly 40 years. Daddy Buck, b abt 1930 OK, and daughters Cheryl b abt 1955, Sharon b abt 1954, and Rosanna "Rosie" b abt 1962, are all top-level singers and musicians individually. Buck's skills on the piano landed him early gigs with the Opry's Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb and others. He married 1951 to Pat Goza b abt 1934 TX d 16 Jun 2002 Hendersonville, Sumner Co TN, and in 1962 they moved from Texas to Arkansas, where they began performing with another couple as the Down Home Folks. Their children performed as the Down Home Kids.
By the mid-'60s, the family was well known in bluegrass circles, and when the younger Whites decided they wanted to sing professionally, the family moved to Nashville in 1971. During their first years in Nashville, they performed as the Down Home Folks and recorded several bluegrass albums. In 1973, mother Pat retired from the group, and in 1975, The Whites played a Washington, D.C. show with Emmylou Harris. That association led to Sharon and Cheryl providing background vocals on Harris' 1978 Blue Kentucky Girl album. "She just opened so many doors for us and put us in front of people who had never seen us before," Sharon told interviewer Paul Edward Joyce. "We just had a great relationship and will forever be grateful to her for how she helped us."
In 1982, Sharon White married Ricky Skaggs, a one-time member of Emmylou's Hot Band who also co-produced The Whites' major-label debut, Old Familiar Feeling. The album yielded four Top 10 hits, including "You Put the Blue in Me," and "Hangin' Around." The album also featured the distinctive dobro work of Jerry Douglas, now a member of Opry star Alison Krauss' band, Union Station. Other albums by The Whites, which blend country, folk, bluegrass, and gospel sounds include Forever You, Ain't No Binds, and Doin' It by the Book. In 2000, The Whites appeared in the film, O Brother, Where Art Thou, performing the Carter Family classic, "Keep on the Sunny Side." Also in 2000, they released the album, A Lifetime in the Making. The Whites were inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008, the same year their collaboration with Skaggs called Salt of the Earth won a Grammy award. And while these "down home folks" have graced stages all over the world, they continue to perform regularly on the Grand Ole Opry.
Obituaries of Pat "Patty" Goza White
Obituary 1 of Patty Matt Goza White b 1934 TX d 16 Jun 2002 Hendersonville, TN: Patty White, 68, matriarch of the Grand Ole Opry act the Whites and Buck's wife, went home to be with the Lord Sunday, June 16, 2002 around 6:00 PM. She had a heart attack Saturday and then an aneurysm Sunday. Pat was the mother of singing daughters Cheryl White and Sharon White Skaggs, wife of artist Ricky Skaggs. The group has been Grand Ole Opry members since 1984. Buck White and his daughters, who are featured in the movie and soundtrack "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," have been touring in connection with the success of the movie and rushed home to be with Mrs. White before her death. Mrs. White also is survived by two brothers, Frank and Guy Goza, a sister, Hattie Smithee, all of Texas, and five grandchildren.
The Whites were formed 1971. Group Members: Buck White, Cheryl White, Sharon White and Patty White. A part of country music for three decades, the Whites started out in bluegrass, adopted a contemporary country sound and later evolved into a gospel group. Buck White and his daughters Sharon and Cheryl comprise the core of the group, though other members have included Ricky Skaggs and Tim Crouch. Buck White formed his first band in 1947 and played piano and mandolin with the Blue Sage Boys in the '50s. White married Pat Goza in 1951; in 1962, they formed the Down Home Folks with Arnold and Peggy Johnston. Sharon and Cheryl White teamed up with Teddie and Eddie Johnston to form the Down Home Kids in the mid-'60s. In 1971, the Whites moved to Nashville, and the Down Home Folks comprised the entire White family. Pat retired from the group in 1973, but Buck and his daughters continued with the band. Buck White and His Down Home Folks didn't really get their big break until 1979, when they worked with Emmylou Harris on Blue Kentucky Girl and later toured with her.
By the early '80s, Buck decided to focus on mandolin playing; after changing their name to the Whites, the group moved away from bluegrass music. In 1982, they made the country Top Ten with "Holding My Baby Tonight" and "Give Me Back That Old Familiar Feeling." The Whites joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1984 and had a Top 30 single "It Should Have Been Easy," from their 1986 album Whole New World. They moved towards gospel music in 1989 with Doing It by the Book, and their '90s releases continued this trend.
Findagrave Memorial Source: Obituary 2 of Patty Matt Goza White b 1934 TX d 16 Jun 2002 Hendersonville, TN: Wife of Buck White of Grand ol' Opry fame. A Life Celebration Service was held Thursday June 20, 2002 at Hendersonville First Baptist Church with Brother Terry Clap and Herb Wilburn of Holiday Heights officiating. Mrs. White was a long time Bible Teacher at Holiday Heights and like a mother to everyone who knew her. She was preceded in death by a grandbaby Franklin, her Parents Charlie and Mary Lou Goza, and two brothers, Bob and Glen Goza. She is survived by husband Buck White, Sharon Skaggs (wife of Ricky), Cheryl White, Rosanna Franklin (wife of Brian) and Melissa Wilson (wife of David). Surviving also are grandchildren Rachel Warren, Molly and Lucas Skaggs, Tucker and Emily Wilson, and Patty's brothers Frank E. Goza (wife Joyce), and Guy L Goza (wife Mary), and Patty's sister Hattie Smithee (husband Don). Burial location was not reported.