Skaggs Family Chrismas COmbines Love of Family and Bluegrass

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

December 6, 2007

Returning to Charlottesville, virtuoso multi-instrumentalist and bluegrass master Ricky Skaggs invites Paramount Theater patrons to celebrate the season with a Skaggs Family Christmas.

This down-home holiday concert brings together the beauty of song and love of family, with bluegrass and acoustic favorites performed by Skaggs, his all-star band Kentucky Thunder, The Whites, and a third generation of family members including siblings Luke and Molly Skaggs and cousin Rachel White.

Skaggs Family Christmas will play The Paramount on Sunday, December 16 at 7 pm. Special Media Sponsor for this event is Big Country 105.3 -- Today’s New Country and Yesterday’s Favorites.

This project was born not in a recording studio, but in the Skaggs’ living room. Singing Christmas songs together sounded and felt so good that Skaggs quickly arranged for the family to perform at five holiday shows in 2003.

“Everyone at the Christmas shows kept asking if we had a CD of this music,” he wrote in the liner notes to 2005’s A Skaggs Family Christmas, Vol. 1. “Well, at the time we didn’t. But as soon as we got off the road … we went right into the studio and started recording.”

Skaggs and his family have been taking their love for this music on the road during the holidays ever since. Like any gathering of friends and relatives, each with his or her own unique personality and taste, selections in A Skaggs Family Christmas vary, reflecting jazz, Celtic, and swing influences in the bluegrass and acoustic mix.

However, the music is unified as well, with the different vocal and instrumental elements flowing into a single statement of love, friendship, and faith.

“I actually didn’t realize how much variety we had until I started editing the record,” Skaggs says. “But that makes it easier to touch a lot of listeners. And because of the kids’ involvement, well, I just think that A Skaggs Family Christmas says a lot more than A Ricky Skaggs Christmas Album could say on its own.”

12-time Grammy Award winner Ricky Skaggs is also a recipient of eight Country Music Association (CMA) awards, including Entertainer of the Year. In his 36th year as a professional musician, Skaggs has helped bring bluegrass music to greater levels of popularity than the father of the genre -- the legendary Bill Monroe -- could ever have imagined.

Along with his celebrated bluegrass band Kentucky Thunder, Skaggs has been recognized with four Best Bluegrass Album Grammys (including a 2007 win for Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder Instrumentals) and eleven International Bluegrass Music Association Awards (eight of those consecutive Instrumental Group of the Year nods).

The Whites are one of America’s most beloved family groups. Drawing on their father Buck’s long experience as a bandleader, vocalist, and pianist, sisters Sharon and Cheryl have pooled their talents with his for more than 30 years.

From their first appearances as the Down Home Folks in their home state of Texas in the early ‘60s, to their recent soundtrack and on-screen contributions to the Coen Brothers’ film O Brother Where Art Thou, The Whites continue to endure as a part of our national musical landscape.

Tickets for Skaggs Family Christmas at 7 pm on Sunday, December 16 are $44.50, $49.50, $59.50, and $64.50. Half-price student rush tickets and group discounts are available.

Tickets are available online or through The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333.

For more information about Ricky Skaggs and The Whites, please visit www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com.