Kentucky Traveler (39 page)

We spent almost the whole day there goofing off like old times, back when we were kids with peach fuzz on our chins and riding with Ralph. Who'd a-known that road would lead us here together, living out our dreams in Nashville, making records and raising families.

We talked about the night when Whipple Ferguson got in my dad's face at the bar in Ohio, and we laughed so hard that Lorrie thought we were out of our minds. She'd never heard that story. She loved hearing about Keith and me when we were teenagers. It was great to see Keith so happy with his new family, 'cause I had heard the stories around Nashville about his battles with the bottle. You know, back in the days when we were with Ralph, I saw Keith take a few drinks of whiskey, but in my whole life I never saw Keith drunk.

When his album
Don't Close Your Eyes
went gold, things started happening fast for Keith, same as they had for me in '81. We both were so busy, too busy for each other. He'd call and say, “Hey, we're getting ready to play softball tonight, wanna come over?” And I'd have to say, “Got something going on, so we can't make it, but give me a call next time.” A few months later, I'd be calling him, “Hey, we're gonna have a cookout at the house, why don't y'all come?” And he'd have to take a rain check: “Gotta leave at eight tonight to go back on the road.” It had gone on like that for years.

We still loved each other like brothers, though, and when we did get together, it was like a homecoming. We'd hug each other and hang out as long as we could. But that didn't happen often enough. There just never was enough time. I look forward to heaven, because I know I'll get to visit with old friends and family as long as I want.

In the spring of 1989, Keith was riding high with another hit, “I'm No Stranger to the Rain,” and his voice was all over the radio. One Friday night, I was working the Opry, Lorrie was, too, and Keith was out with her for the performance. We were backstage in the green room talking and goofing like we always did. Keith was a star now, he'd finally made it to the top, and yet, he was still the same ol' rascal.

Sharon and the Whites were on the Opry that night, too. Keith knew Sharon was pregnant and the baby was coming soon, so he asked, “Y'all got a name picked out?”

I said, “If it's a boy, I think we're gonna call him Luke, short for Lucas Buck,” after his granddad, Buck White, and 'cause Sharon and I loved the sound of Luke. So did Keith. “Man, I really like that name, Luke Skaggs,” he said. “Sounds like a shortstop!”

About that time, Lorrie walked by and said she was next on stage. Keith got up grinning his big wide Whitley grin and said, “Well, I'd better get out there and see the wife sing.” He gave me a bear hug and said we should get together soon. I said we would. As he walked toward the stage entrance, he turned back and looked at me with his big blue eyes and his big smile, and that's the last time I saw him.

A few weeks later, on May 9, I had to take a trip back to eastern Kentucky to speak at a memorial service. There's a cousin of mine, Gloria, who ran the grocery store in Martha, Kentucky, Gar Ferguson's store. She's married to Gar's son Ralph. Well, their teenaged son had died in an accident—he was cleaning his gun and he shot himself. Gloria called and asked if I could come and give a talk to his classmates and friends and maybe sing a song.

Ain't no way I could have said no to that. Little Luke had been born five days before, on May 4, but Sharon said she'd be all right, and I decided to make a day trip and get back before dark.

So I drove to Sandy Hook, where they were holding the service at Elliott County High School, the same school Keith had gone to. On the way, I passed by the Whitleys' house, where Keith's mother, Faye, still lived, just down the road from the school.

At the memorial service, I told the kids how important it was to stay close to their parents and to cherish their moms and dads and brothers and sisters, and to try to live a life that's pleasing to family and pleasing to the Lord. I encouraged them to always try to make things right with each other and to cultivate friends and to not have enemies. I spoke to them from the heart, like any father would.

Heading back home, I drove past the Whitley house again and noticed three or four cars parked in the driveway. I was thinking how much I'd love to stop by and give Miss Faye a hug and say hello. It had been so long, I was thinking. But it looked like she already had company over. Maybe it wasn't a good time to just show up on the doorstep. Besides, I really needed to get back home to be with Sharon and the baby.

Somewhere around Winchester, Kentucky, I got a phone call from Sharon. She asked if I was driving, and I told her I was. She said to pull off the road, 'cause she had some bad news. I was afraid maybe something was wrong with Luke, but she said he was fine. I stopped the car on the shoulder of Interstate 64, wondering if something had happened to Mom or Dad.

Then Sharon told me it was Keith. They'd found him dead earlier that day in his home outside Nashville. He'd died of alcohol poisoning. I said that I'd just driven past Miss Faye's and that something had told me to stop by, but there were cars parked outside. Now I knew why. Must have been neighbors rushing over after they heard the news. I knew I had to turn around and go see about Faye. Sharon said that was the right thing to do, and not to worry about her and the kids.

So I headed back to Sandy Hook, and I went to Faye's house and stayed for a while. We tried our best to comfort her, but there wasn't much anybody could do right then 'cept to just be there for her. She was completely distraught. In the previous few years, she'd lost an older son, Randy, in a motorcycle accident; then her husband, Elmer; and now her youngest, Keith.

I ended up spending that night with my mom and dad on Brushy Creek. They'd already heard the news about Keith on the radio. Lorrie called me and asked if I could help officiate at Keith's funeral in Nashville. “You know what kind of sermon and which kind of songs he would have liked,” she said. “Nobody knew Keith better than you did.” I told her I'd do my very best for her and the family. To lose Keith was such an awful thing for Lorrie. She would now have to bring up Jesse, as well her daughter, Morgan, from a previous marriage, on her own.

Even today, when I think back on his death, I can't say I ever saw it coming. Keith seemed to be doing so well, at least on the surface. Every time I saw him, he seemed sober and in good spirits. Everybody knew that he wrestled with alcoholism, that he'd be fine for a while and then go on binges. The danger was that Keith wasn't social when he drank; he'd get by himself somewhere, and that was the scary thing.

Keith never called me to ask for help with his drinking, or his career or fame or anything like that. I'll always regret that I wasn't a better friend, that I didn't spend more time with him, and that I wasn't close enough to him to see what was going on. But I honestly don't know if I could have helped. Lorrie tried, and so did others, like Joe Galante, the head of the Nashville division of RCA, Keith's record label. Joe believed in Keith so much as a singer, and as a person. He went out on a limb for him and sent Keith to clinics and counselors. Joe was beside himself trying everything he could think of. The saddest part is that I think Keith tried his best, too.

Alcoholism is a disease, but it's a spiritual sickness as well. The Scriptures warn in Proverbs 20:1 about how strong drink can become a deceiver. Its power and reach are as strong and widespread today as ever, and it can be as destructive as any drug. Alcoholism is a plague, really. I've seen it prey on my cousin Euless and so many others, and it took Keith away, too.

Music Row was draped in black ribbons, and the country music world was in mourning. The service for Keith was north of Nashville at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, where Lorrie was a member. There were five hundred people at the funeral, and we sang some of our favorite old hymns and Stanley Brothers favorites: “White Dove,” “The Fields Have Turned Brown,” and “Drifting Too Far from the Shore.” I remember singing one in particular, “Talk About Suffering,” with its message about how faith can help get us through anything: “Talk about suffering here below, and let's keep following Jesus.”

I gave the eulogy, and I kept thinking about that night in 1971—when Keith and I were driving back from a road trip with Ralph's band, and I got drunk and sick as a dog in a motel room in Jackson, Kentucky. Keith took care of me and laid me out on my bed. He helped me to the commode when I got sick and held cold washcloths on my head.

So I talked a little about that night and told some other stories. Then I said that if anybody was in a desperate situation or as dark of a place as Keith had been, or knew somebody who was, they should get help, and keep trying to get help. I thought he'd want me to tell people that no matter how bad things were, they weren't alone. I've had people on Music Row come up and tell me that Keith's funeral was a turning point in their lives. After the service, they went to rehab and got clean. Keith's death had a real impact, which I suppose is the silver lining to a terrible tragedy.

Once in a while, I'll hear one of Keith's records, or I'll play a Stanley Brothers song at a show, a sad ol' tune that we used to sing together like “A Lonesome Night,” and my mind wanders back to those innocent days at the Whitleys' place in Sandy Hook, where we recorded our radio shows in Keith's garage. I'll always remember the special bond we had.

There was something about Keith. You could just never know him, I mean
really
know him. Not that he lived a double life or anything like that. There was something inside him that he felt he had to protect from the world. Some secret place behind a locked door where no one else could go. He only let himself in there. I never felt that I really knew him. All I know for sure is that I loved him like a brother and I still miss him all these years later.

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. Their seed shall remain forever, and their glory shall not be blotted out
.

—Ecclesiasticus (Book of Sirach), Chapter 44

R
emember how I was telling you about my ancestor Henry Skaggs and the long hunters? About how they'd head into the woods for a year or two, and they'd hunt game and trap fur and push further into the wilderness, and somehow they'd eventually make it back home? You know, it's kinda funny, you never hear about Henry and his guys getting lost when they were out trailblazing. But you know they must have, at least a time or two.

Well, I'd gone out exploring in the world of country music. It's a tough path to follow. Many of my friends got lost out there. Some, like Keith, didn't survive. God's word helped me to stay on the narrow way. Psalms 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Musically, I tried to keep my bearings by following the old pathways of my heroes, Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, Webb Pierce, and others.

And for a time everything clicked, with radio, the record label, and the marketplace rallying around my old-fashioned style of country music. But after a while, people's tastes started to change again. So I was asking the Lord which way to go. I was at a crossroads, which is not a bad place to be. I knew I had to take everything to the Cross and leave it there. If God wanted to kill my worldly success and music career, He could. If He wanted to resurrect it and give life to it, He could do that, too.

It wasn't until after I lost the two pillars in my life, my dad and Bill Monroe, that I was able to know which way I should go. Both of those great men knew how much I loved bluegrass and the old ancient sounds of the mountains. So I decided to go back to the music of my youth. Not to take Bill Monroe's place, no one could ever do that, but take my place around the table of this great music that God had set before me.

I don't have any regrets about my career in country. The success I had and the lessons I learned have helped me to do what I'm doing today as an independent musician with my own label. I had a good long run, and a good string of hits that I can sing as long as I want, and the fans still love to hear those country hits even in a bluegrass style.

In the early '90s, Nashville made a swing back to a blend of pop and country, kinda like what it had been when I'd come to town ten years before. Things had come full circle again, the way Rick Blackburn used to say it always does. Country had gone uptown before. Now it was going suburban!

The video networks were really embracing country. Garth Brooks went on the road with a bigger stage show than Nashville had never seen before, and he was selling out arenas like a rock star. Garth is the most successful country artist of all time. He's sold more than 123 million records worldwide, and he's taken country music to more people than anyone. I'm very proud of him, and he's always been very respectful of me.

Now I was in a bind. My heart was crying out to do rootsy, traditional stuff, but I couldn't under my contract with Epic. I switched labels and tried to find new inspiration. Well, my situation changed a little, but the country scene didn't.

Around this time, the Ryman Auditorium was closed down to the public. Another sign of the times, sad but true. There was talk of condemning the old brick building and even tearing it down. Marty Stuart, Vince Gill, and I took a stand. We said publicly, “Over our dead bodies you'll tear this building down.” It was still the Mother Church of Country Music, and it was hallowed ground for millions of people.

Even in these dark days, sometimes the Ryman hosted special events. One year, there was a special show during something called Fan Fair week. In 1993, I was headlining with Bill Monroe and Little Jimmy Dickens.

As luck would have it, my dad was in town. He and my mom had driven down from Brushy for our Skaggs fan-club picnic. We used to have it every year at the Belle Meade Mansion, which had a restored horse barn where we could put on a free show for a few thousand people. It was a kid-friendly, come-as-you-are party, really, like a big family reunion.