Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby Live - CD Review

I really like this CD! I wasn't sure what to expect when I popped it into my player. What happens when you add pianist Bruce Hornsby to a powerhouse bluegrass ensemble like Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder? I was half expecting some newgrass in the vein of New Grange, an album that featured Tim O'Brien, Darol Anger, Allision Brown, Mike Marshall, Todd Phillips, and Philip Aaberg, but the CD cover, complete with an image of what looks like Bill Monroe pickin' to the chickens, seemed to shout out traditional bluegrass. Truth be told; what it is is a little of both. On tracks like How Mountain Girls Can Love, Toy Heart, and Little Maggie, Hornsby proves that a keyboard can be seamlessly integrated into a traditional bluegrass band. At times Bruce's piano, very capably, takes on the role of a mandolin or 5 string banjo, but at other times his jazzy style takes the band well into newgrass territory. A great CD by Ricky Skaggs, Kentucky Thunder, and bluegrass piano pioneer Bruce Hornsby!

Earl Scruggs 1924 - 2012

Photo by Rivers Langley

Legendary bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Earl was an incredibly talented guitarist and banjo player who is often credited with inventing the three finger style of banjo picking. While he may not have been the first to play the banjo using three fingers, he definitely elevated the three finger, rolling, picking style to an art form. It was Earl's high energy banjo style that turned Bill Monroe's country band into a "bluegrass" band. His "Scruggs style" banjo picking would become synonymous with bluegrass banjo. Earl's wife and agent, Louise, once defined bluegrass as "folk music in overdrive," and it was the Scrugg's style of banjo that shifted the music into high gear.