Search - Ricky Skaggs :: Life Is a Journey

Kathleen L. (katlupe) from OXFORD, NY
Reviewed on 9/23/2006...

Good Music!

Skaggs delights

Catherine S. Vodrey | East Liverpool, Ohio United States | 03/04/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ricky Skaggs opens this album with the Steve Earle tune of defiant pride in his roots, "Hillbilly Highway." It's a great way to start an album which shows the same ownership of country and bluegrass music. Skaggs' easy, swinging voice does justic to everything on this terrific album. Could a song start out sounding more typically countryesque than "Let's Put Love to Work"? But instead of talking about breakin' up and drinkin', this tune encourages the work involved in any romance. One of many artists to cover Larry Cordle's anthemic "Lonesome Dove," Skaggs is one of the few to sound as though he really does "know how you feel/Lonesome dove." On the wonderfully titled "I Don't Remember Forgetting," Skaggs harmonizes with the song's composer and a star in her own right, Lee Ann Womack. The result is a distillation of country purity and beauty. Skaggs even manages to sneak in a little religion without falling on his gospel roots when he sings "Voices Singing," a lilting lullaby of a tune. There's not a bad song on this album."

Classic Country Sounds

Steve Vrana | Aurora, NE | 12/28/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Ricky Skaggs cut his teeth on bluegrass music. He picked up a mandolin at the age of five and within ten years was performing in Ralph Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys. Following a stint in Emmylou Harris's Hot Band while still in his twenties, Skaggs brought a traditionalist sensibility to country music and throughout the Eighties was one of country music's hottest stars.By the Nineties, the country hits stopped and to date Life Is a Journey is Skaggs' last country effort. Within months Skaggs returned to bluegrass music with the stunning Bluegrass Rules! and hasn't looked back. But if you enjoy straight ahead country music with lots of fiddles, steel guitar and mandolin, this is as good as any of Skagg's Eighties' albums.Highlights are a remake of Steve Earle's "Hillbilly Highway," the toe-tapping "Straight to You," the upbeat "Ain't Love a Good Thing" and the reflective "Voices Singing." As the title says "Life Is a Journey." Enjoy the ride. RECOMMENDED"