Up close and personal: Cantrell hosts live interview with Skaggs for ROMP spotlight event

Jun. 24—Fans of bluegrass music star Ricky Skaggs were able to experience a different side of him on Friday during the 20th annual ROMP Fest's Hall of Fame Spotlight live interview hosted by Kyle Cantrell of Banjo Radio at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

Skaggs performed Friday night on the main stage of the festival at Yellow Creek Park, but his afternoon was spent answering questions and talking about his iconic career in the genre created by Ohio County's Bill Monroe.

Cantrell said bluegrass fans particularly tend to have more of an interest in artist's backgrounds.

"Bluegrass is very interactive in music," he said. "When you go to a festival or around people who love the music, the natural thing to do is to start talking about what they like about the music and before you know it, they're playing music together."

The music has generated a kind of family among bluegrass listeners, Cantrell said.

"Bluegrass fans have access to the artist in ways you don't find in other forms of music," he said. "Bluegrass artists are so much more accessible and more willing to meet with fans, sign autographs, take pictures."

Cantrell said this creates a natural curiosity among fans about artists themselves.

"With an artist like Ricky Skaggs, who has had such a long and colorful history in music and has done so many things over a critical period of time, I think it's very important for people to know about his background and learn about how he came to be what he is today," he said.

The span of Skaggs' career has covered more ground than most bluegrass artists today, Cantrell said.

"In the early days of his life, he was playing music as a child, so he grew up with it," Cantrell said. "He had a family that was musically inclined, then at a very young age, he began working with Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys."

Cantrell said Skaggs took what he learned in working with Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys and applied it to his own music.

"The story of his career and how he went from one step to the other is fascinating," Cantrell said. "It's almost like a college course in how bluegrass has developed over the years."

This was not the first time Cantrell has sat down with Skaggs for an interview.

"I've had him on my shows on numerous occasions, had him come in and play live for us, had him in interview situations when he has new albums out," Cantrell said. "I was an announcer on the Grand Ole Opry for 20 years and worked many shows with him there."

Cantrell said he was able to get to know Skaggs when he was "just a kid."

"It's been fun having him around in my professional life for as long as I've been doing it," he said.

One thing Cantrell wants everyone to know about Skaggs is that he has a "tremendous amount of and a very unique talent."

"His command of the music, his ability to play and sing, is nothing short of amazing," he said. "It comes from years of hard work but there's also a lot of inborn talent that he has."

Cantrell said Skaggs has a great amount of understanding of bluegrass music.

"He understands its origins, he understands where it is headed, and everything in between," he said. "He knows what bluegrass music ought to sound like and therefore knows how to build on what that basic sound is."

Cantrell described Skaggs as the "quintessential bluegrass artist."