Ricky Skaggs is finally releasing a solo project – and we do mean solo.

Songs My Dad Loved, due September 15 on Skaggs Family Records, features Ricky on 13 tracks, accompanied only by himself on guitar, mandolin, mandocello, fiddle and banjo. He also provides the lead and harmony vocals on this set of primarily traditional old time and country songs.

All of the performances are heartfelt and restrained and the duet singing is simply gorgeous. Skaggs also shows his mastery of a number of stringed instruments, with his clawhammer banjo playing being especially prominent.

He describes the concept behind this album, a tribute to his father, in a recent interview with former WSM host Keith Bilbrey.

Audio samples can be heard on the Skaggs Family web site, where pre-orders for the CD will enter you to win free tickets to any Skaggs concert in the US. Winners will also receive a $50 VISA gift card and a chance to meet Ricky at the show.

OK…  it’s not what you think.

Ricky Skaggs is doing a solo project, but he is still firmly in place as the fearless leader of Kentucky Thunder. In fact, it’s a solo project in the truest sense of the word.

His next CD, Songs My Dad Loved, is due on September 15 and Ricky played and sang each part on every track. Skaggs plays fiddle, guitar, mandolin and clawhammer banjo on the new CD, and sings harmony as well as lead vocals on memorable classics from The Monroe Brothers and The Stanley Brothers, plus some timeless hymns and Gospel songs.

The album is a tribute to Hobart Skaggs, Ricky’s father, who had been an old time music performer in the first half of the 20th century. Hobart fostered Ricky’s musical interests when he was still a lad, and help sow the seeds that grew into one of the most remarkable careers of any bluegrass musician alive today.

Ricky had a memorable stage debut at a Flatt & Scruggs show before he hit his teens, and was performing as a member of Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys while still in high school. He has always credited his dad, and his mother, Dorothy Skaggs (both now deceased) with encouraging him in his music, and teaching him to sing and love the sound of old time, country and bluegrass music.

Tracks include:

• Foggy River
• What Is A Home Without Love
• Colonel Printess
• City That Lies Foursquare
• Little Maggie
• Sinner You’d Better Get Ready
• Pickin’ In Caroline
• I Had But 50 Cents
• Green Pastures In The Sky
• Calloway
• This World Is Not My Home
• Branded Wherever I Go
• God Holds The Future In His Hands

This ought to be a good’n.

Doyle Lawson and Ricky Skaggs are among the performers scheduled to appear during the forthcoming Bluegrass Nights Series at The Ryman.

Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman, an annual concert series in Nashville, begins June 25 with a show featuring Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, with Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper in support. The series at the historic Ryman Auditorium will also feature Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder (July 2), Rhonda Vincent & the Rage, Bobby Osborne & the Rocky Top X-Press and Next Best Thing (July 9), Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys and Jim Lauderdale (July 16), the Dan Tyminski Band and Steep Canyon Rangers (July 23) and Dailey & Vincent and the SteelDrivers (July 30).

Ticket information can be found at The Ryman web site.

Editor Sharon McGraw tells us that the April 2009 issue of Bluegrass Unlimited will be in the mail today, heading for subscribers all across the US, Canada and the rest of the world.

The cover feature is on Ricky Skaggs and his label, Skaggs Family Records.

There is also an article on David Harvey, noted mandolinist and luthier with Gibson Acoustic Instruments, images from the new photo mural at East Tennessee State University, plus pieces on Maine’s Al Hawkes and East Side Dave Kline from Mountain Folk radio.

Subscription and single-issue information can be found online.