Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder

‍Kentucky Thunder 

"This group of guys meets my approval every night," Ricky says. "Each and every one of the pickers in Kentucky Thunder totally amazes me in every show...and that, to me, outweighs any award we could ever win." The all-star lineup of Kentucky Thunder includes Russ Carson (banjo), Jake Workman (lead guitar), Dennis Parker (baritone vocals, guitar), Gavin Kelso (bass), Mike Rogers (tenor vocals, rhythm guitar) and Billy Contreras (fiddle).

Ricky Skaggs

Fifteen-time GRAMMY® Award-winner Ricky Skaggs’ career is easily among the most significant in recent country music history. If Skaggs’ burgeoning trophy case full of awards wasn’t already enough evidence of that fact, consider that legendary guitarist Chet Atkins once credited Skaggs with “single-handedly saving country music.” His life’s path has taken him to various musical genres, from where it all began in bluegrass music, to striking out on new musical journeys, while still leaving his musical roots intact.

Born July 18, 1954 in Cordell, Kentucky, Skaggs showed signs of future stardom at an early age, playing mandolin on stage with bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe at 6 and appearing on TV with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs at 7. He emerged as a professional bluegrass musician in 1971, when he and his friend Keith Whitley were invited to join the legendary Ralph Stanley’s band the Clinch Mountain Boys. Skaggs then went on to record and perform with progressive bluegrass acts like the Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe & the New South, whose self-titled 1975 Rounder Records debut album was instantly recognized as a landmark bluegrass achievement. He then led Boone Creek, which also featured Dobro ace and fellow New South alumnus Jerry Douglas.

But Skaggs turned to the more mainstream country music genre in the late ‘70s when he joined Emmylou Harris’s Hot Band, replacing Rodney Crowell. He became a recording artist in his own right in 1981 when his Epic label debut album Waitin’ for the Sun to Shine topped the country charts and yielded a pair of #1 hits. Overall, his productive stay at Epic Records would result in a total of 12 #1 hits. Additionally, he garnered eight Country Music Association Awards--including the coveted Entertainer of the Year trophy in 1985.

Skaggs, of course, fit right in with young “new-traditionalist” ‘80s artists like Randy Travis, and helped rejuvenate the country music genre after the worn-out “Urban Cowboy” period. But, Skaggs put his own stamp on the country format by infusing his bluegrass and traditional country music roots into the contemporary Nashville sound.

Skaggs’ 1997 album Bluegrass Rules!, released on his newly-formed Skaggs Family Records label, marked a triumphant return to bluegrass—which he’s solidified ever since with a series of GRAMMY® Award winning albums, recorded with his amazing bluegrass band, Kentucky Thunder (8-time winners of the IBMA ‘Instrumental Group of the Year’). Skaggs’ label has also served as a home for similar bluegrass and roots music-oriented artists including The Whites.

In the past decade, he has been honored with inductions into the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame. In 2018, a landmark year, Skaggs was also awarded membership into the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, the IBMA Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and country music’s greatest honor, the Country Music Hall of Fame. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious National Medal of Arts in 2020 for his contributions to the American music industry.

Ricky struck his first chords on a mandolin over 60 years ago, and he continues to do his part to lead the recent roots revival in music. Clearly his passion for it puts him in the position to bring his lively, distinctively American form of music out of isolation and into the ears and hearts of audiences across the country and around the world. Ricky Skaggs is always forging ahead with cross-cultural, genre-bending musical ideas and inspirations.

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Jack Schneider

Independent folk artist and guitarist Jack Schneider is known for music that breathes new life into his generation’s artistic landscape by embracing the simplicity of times past. Born in New York and raised in Georgia, Jack moved to Nashville after attending New York University. Within three years of his college graduation, Schneider was on the road with Vince Gill, touring as an acoustic rhythm guitarist. As a duo, Vince and Jack opened for the Eagles in 2024.

Behind the scenes, Jack has been writing and recording his own music. He released his debut album Best Be On My Way in November 2022 to critical acclaim, including an album preview in Fretboard Journal and a review in Folk Radio UK, which called it an “engaging, musically understated, but highly accomplished debut” that “evokes not only the early balladeering Bob Dylan but also dusty shades of Tom Rush, Eric Andersen, and Lowell George.” The record features a star-studded cast of players— David Rawlings, Vince Gill, Stuart Duncan, and Dennis Crouch among them. In the wake of that release, Jack embarked on tour throughout the United States, opening for artists from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to Ricky Skaggs and performing at the last of Gordon Lightfoot’s American shows. Back in Nashville, he made his debut artist performance at the Grand Ole Opry, where he has long joined Gill as an instrumentalist.

It was also through Best Be On My Way that Jack began working with Matt Andrews, a three-time Grammy Award-winning engineer who mixed Best Be On My Way and whose track record includes work with Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show, the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack and countless other albums. Jack’s new record, produced by Matt Andrews, is slated for release this summer. With a reverence for folk music and an instrumental prowess that captivates audiences everywhere, Jack Schneider is a sharp answer to the ever-urgent question of modern day artistic authenticity.

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