The Story Behind The Song………………………….. “Uncle Pen” – Ricky Skaggs (#1, 1984) Country music bluegrass legend Bill Monroe never managed a #1 hit on any national chart. By the time the hillbilly charts were spun off the pop playlists in 1944, Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys had already been members of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry for five years, so it was too late for many of Bill’s classic songs to have a chance to claim anything but a regional audience. With music moving from the straightforward hill forms of expression to dance music, swing, honky-tonk, smooth ballads and rockabilly, it’s amazing that Monroe’s beloved bluegrass survived at all. Yet, a small circle of performers and fans continued to embrace the style that Bill himself had invented. Those chosen few managed to keep bluegrass alive, even if it had been pushed way out of the spotlight. Former Monroe band members Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs has scored country music’s first #1 bluegrass hit in 1963. Yet, in all honesty, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” was more of a novelty record than a true bluegrass standard. Written strictly as the theme song for CBS’s wildly successful “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the number would never have become such a huge hit without the television show’s support. While “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” did open up a small pocket of interest in the traditional musical form, it failed to generate a large trend that would bring bluegrass consistently to either the top of the charts or the center of the country music stage. By and large, except for a later brief surge created by the movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” banjos, fiddles and dobros had given way to drums, electric basses and hot Fender guitar licks. In the minds of most performers under the age of fifty, bluegrass was an ancient musical style that was little more than a reminder of the roots of country music. For all practical purposes, it was dead. Traditional country music had become such an unimportant part of the industry that by the mid 1970s, some of Nashville’s most influential musicians were extremely concerned. They acknowledged that with so few youngsters becoming interested in the old hill music, instruments such as the banjo and the dobro might become a part of the past. There just didn’t seem to be anyone in the current generation taking the time to learn them. However, unbeknownst to the traditionalists in Music City, deep in the hills of Kentucky, a youngster was growing up in the bluegrass tradition, and his hero was none other than Bill Monroe. This young man would come to town in the late seventies and find himself looked upon as an old-fashioned picker awash in a Nashville that was enraptured with middle-of-the-road music. Facing tremendous odds, this man would not just create a resurgence in bluegrass music, but would also become one of the biggest and brightest stars in the industry. Bill Monroe’s recording career was pretty much history by the time Ricky Skaggs was born in Cordell, Kentucky on July 18, 1954. Yet, this small boy was so hooked on the sounds created by Monroe that he was already on stage singing traditional mountain-style country songs at the age of eight. He went on to perform with Flatt and Scruggs as well as Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys while in his teens. It was while working with Stanley that he first met Keith Whitley. They formed a friendship that lasted to the end of Keith’s life in 1989. Both young men eventually reached stardom, Ricky somewhat earlier than Keith, as major label Epic (a subsidiary of the mighty Columbia Record Company) signed Skaggs in 1981. It took just three singles for him to find the #1 spot with a cover of an old fifties honky-tonk tune, “Crying My Heart Out Over You.” The success of this release surprised even the representatives of his own label! In the midst of the “outlaw” movement of Waylon and Willie on one side, and smooth pop production on the other, Ricky was traveling straight down country music’s long dormant traditional road. Many thought Skaggs was driving the musical equivalent of a Model T Ford, but he would quickly prove them wrong. Ricky followed his first #1 with six more hard-country chart-toppers. In two brief years he had become a star of major proportions. Modest, straightforward, and at peace with himself and his sound, Ricky seemed completely unaffected by fame or fortune, and continued to record songs which reflected his own rural roots. His unbelievable back-roads journey to superstardom was completed when he reached back almost fifty years to pay tribute to the man who had invented the music which Skaggs so loved. Though he was a product of his bluegrass roots, up until this time Nashville had labeled Ricky’s music more of a new honky-tonk sound. Thus, Bill Monroe had failed again to receive any just due from the new powers which governed Music City. Therefore, it should have been expected that when Ricky picked out Monroe’s “Uncle Pen” as his next release, the record company balked. Epic’s executives claimed the market wouldn’t support a song that sounded so old-fashioned. To beat their argument and to emphasize just how much he believed in the number, Skaggs pointed to his live crowds’ enthusiastic reactions to the old Monroe classic. Ricky had filled out his “Don’t Cheat In Our Hometown” album with “Uncle Pen,” and without any prompting whatsoever, disc jockeys had begun playing the song off the album as if it were a single (radio stations could still get away with such unbridled misbehavior in those days). Soon, requests began to build for the number. Slowly, from one region of the country to another, “Uncle Pen” was generating an audience. People were buying the album just to get a copy of the song. Although still unconvinced, Epic bowed to Ricky’s new star power and released “Uncle Pen” as a single. It debuted on Billboard’s country chart on July 21, 1984 and reached #1 by October 13th. The record label was shocked, Ricky was pleased and, for both public and private reasons, Bill Monroe was extremely proud. Except for the aforementioned “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” Ricky Skaggs’ version of “Uncle Pen” marks the only other time that a bluegrass tune has made it to #1 on any national playlist. In all honesty, though, I have never considered Ricky’s rendition of this tune to be a bluegrass cut. It has fiddles, sure enough, but those hot guitar licks don’t sound very “bluegrassy” to me. To illustrate my point, Skaggs was initially worried that Monroe might disapprove of his high-energy, modern-day treatment of “Uncle Pen,” but whether Bill liked the new version or not, he collected a boatload of royalties from it. Reportedly, Monroe told Skaggs, “son, anytime you want to record and release any of my old songs, you have my complete permission to do so.” – JH youtu.be/F7Z9Yio_K6c
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 12:43:58 +0000
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