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Highways & Heartaches
Ricky Skaggs
Highways & Heartaches
Genres: Country, Pop
 
Already a country music veteran by age 25, Ricky Skaggs wasn't content to have his passion for traditional country music and bluegrass confined to small independent labels. Between 1979 and 1982, Skaggs was somehow able to...  more »

     
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CD Details

All Artists: Ricky Skaggs
Title: Highways & Heartaches
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Skaggs Family
Original Release Date: 1/1/1982
Re-Release Date: 2/24/2009
Genres: Country, Pop
Styles: Bluegrass, Outlaw Country
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 886973971024

Synopsis

Amazon.com
Already a country music veteran by age 25, Ricky Skaggs wasn't content to have his passion for traditional country music and bluegrass confined to small independent labels. Between 1979 and 1982, Skaggs was somehow able to force-feed his taste for country's roots to the Nashville mainstream. Sweet Temptation, his 1979 solo debut for tiny Sugar Hill Records, impressed listeners with its old-school blend of honky-tonk and bluegrass and served as an alternative to the popular Urban Cowboy style of the day. Skaggs followed that the next year with his exquisite close-harmony duet album with Tony Rice, not exactly a move toward the center. Still, Epic rewarded him with a major-label deal and even allowed him to produce his own stuff. Highways & Heartaches, released in 1982, was his second Epic effort, and it spawned three No. 1 singles. Though it deftly fused traditional country with a touch of modern polish, the record wasn't as much a departure sonically for Skaggs as it was a departure psychologically for mainstream Nashville. Reissued in 2000, it's now considered one of the first neo-traditionalist triumphs, and it remains Skaggs's most successful merging of artistic and commercial concerns. --Marc Greilsamer

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CD Reviews

Country Traditionalsit Perfection
Joshua Skaggs | Mountain Home AFB, ID | 12/03/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)

"Highways & Heartaches is truly a treasured classic. Thank goodness they have reissued it. Skaggs' vocal talent soars in all 10 tracks including the monster #1 hits Heartbroke, I Wouldn't Change You If I Could, and Highway 40 Blues. This is Ricky Skaggs at the peak of his career. Possibly his best stuff ever recorded. This album led the traditionalist movement of the 1980's, which is often neglected by many on music row!"
A country music milestone!
R. Russell | 09/11/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)

"With this album, Ricky Skaggs pointed the way out of the cheesy, overly processed, disco-diseased quagmire that country music had become by the early Eighties. Using the best elements from bluegrass, traditional country and modern country, he and his band created a sound that truly jumped out of the radio. Excellent musicianship, beautiful vocal work, and memorable songs that deal with timeless and universal human situations. This music is now 23 years old, but like all great works, it doesn't sound dated in the least. A masterpiece from one of country's greatest."