![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052723250-1540220566.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nStories of musical instruments that became magic carpets also loomed large during the evening \u2014 the fiddle Gimble began playing when he was 10, the cheap guitar West won when she was 12 by selling Smith\u2019s Rosebud Salve door to door and the $5 mandolin Skaggs father bought him in a Lima, Ohio pawnshop and then transported lovingly back to Eastern Kentucky to place as a surprise beside his sleeping five-year-old.<\/p>\n
Then there was Bill Monroe\u2019s priceless 1923 Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5 mandolin taken from its glass case in the Hall of Fame museum and given to Skaggs to play during the evening\u2019s traditional finale, \u201cWill the Circle Be Unbroken,\u201d closing the three-hour ceremony.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052723208-1540234072.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nWhile the audience was gathering, screens above the stage showed the members of each year\u2019s Hall of Fame \u201cclass\u201d since the institution was founded in 1961. Gimble, West and Skaggs are the 134th, 135th and 136th members, respectively.<\/p>\n
Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young hosted the proceeding, which has come to be known as the Medallion Ceremony because of the necklace-like medal awarded each new inductee.<\/p>\n
Young chronicled Gimble\u2019s rise from his youth in Tyler, Texas to the formation of his own bands to his inclusion in 1949 in Bob Wills\u2019 superband, the Texas Playboys. He relocated to Nashville in 1968 and became an in-demand session musician, playing on the albums of such luminaries as Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson (once a bass player in Gimble\u2019s own band), Dolly Parton, Marty Robbins, George Strait, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash and Randy Travis.<\/p>\n
Characterized as \u201copen minded and open hearted,\u201d Gimble seemed to take great joy in his fiddling, always lighting up the stage and sessions with his grins. His tenure as a Texas Playboy earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.<\/p>\n
In recognition of Gimble\u2019s love of the jazz element in western swing music, David Ball, accompanied by the Time Jumpers\u2019 fiddlers Sears, Spivey and Franklin, offered a high-spirited but ultra-smooth rendering of the old classic, \u201cRight or Wrong,\u201d the same song Strait took to No. 1 in 1984, with Gimble on fiddle.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722260-1540234265.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nNext on stage was Cleveland, an 11-time winner of the International Bluegrass Music Assn.\u2019s fiddler of the year award, with his light-touch interpretation of Gimble\u2019s own composition, \u201cGardenia Waltz.\u201d White backed him on acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n
Grand Ole Opry star and Hall of Fame member Connie Smith delivered the final musical tribute to Gimble, singing her 1972 hit, \u201cIf It Ain\u2019t Love (Let\u2019s Leave It Alone).\u201d She had been so impressed by Gimble\u2019s work on that record, she said, that she tried to get her label, RCA, to credit him as her duo partner. When the label refused, she sent a letter to disc jockeys asking them to take notice of his musical contribution.<\/p>\n
Smith brought Gimble\u2019s widow and children to the stage to participate in the unveiling of his bronze Hall of Fame plaque.<\/p>\n
A series of videos and photos traced Dottie West\u2019s progress from a gingham-wearing country girl to a spandex-clad Las Vegas vamp. In a voice-over narrative, Kenny Rogers, West\u2019s frequent duet partner, declared, \u201cDottie was one of those people who believed what she sang.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young described West\u2019s hardscrabble upbringing, dominated by an abusive father who was \u201ca holy terror\u201d and a mother so beaten down that she \u201cpracticed laughing in a mirror so she wouldn\u2019t forget how.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, West (whose original name was Dorothy Marsh) put herself through college, married steel player Bill West, wrote lots of songs and began her slow march toward musical immortality.<\/p>\n
That march would include duet pairings with Jim Reeves, Don Gibson, Jimmy Dean and finally Rogers and a wildly successful series of Coca-Cola ads that led to her 1973 hit, \u201cCountry Sunshine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opry member Jeannie Seely, who West convinced to seek a career in Nashville, came to the stage to sing \u201cHere Comes My Baby,\u201d a song West and her husband wrote and one that earned her a Grammy in 1964 for best female country vocal.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722654-1540234570.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nGatlin and Wariner, two talents West championed at the beginnings of their careers, followed Seely with a cool and casual reading of \u201cCountry Sunshine\u201d that had the crowd clapping along.<\/p>\n
West\u2019s daughter, Shelly, who had her own country successes in the 1980s, chief among them her duet with David Frizzell, \u201cYou\u2019re the Reason God Made Oklahoma,\u201d sat in the front row with her brothers, gazing in rapt attention \u2014 and now and then raising her arm in affirmation \u2014 as Gatlin and Wariner sang.<\/p>\n
The War and Treaty (Michael and Tanya Trotter) capped off the West segment with a hard-hitting cover of her 1980 hit \u2014 and her first No. 1 as a solo artist \u2014 \u201cA Lesson in Leavin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722360-1540234430.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nHall of Famer Brenda Lee (both Country and Rock and Roll) emerged to induct West formally. \u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of this in my life,\u201d she said, \u201cbut this is one of the most precious to me.\u201d She credited West, Patsy Cline and songwriter Marijohn Wilkin for encouraging and nourishing her aspirations. Then she summoned to the stage Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, Jeannie Seely, Jan Howard and Connie Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, you female girls,\u201d she cracked. \u201cThe reason I\u2019m doing this is that it takes a village to induct this woman. . . . She had the biggest heart. She was a good woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052721792-1540234649.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\nLikening her own impoverished childhood to West\u2019s, Lee continued, \u201cShe and I felt the safest when we were on stage. We felt like we could be who we were then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shelly West told the crowd that even though her mother and father were on the road a lot, she had a loving and charmed childhood \u2014 not to mention the company of such personalities as Roger Miller and Willie Nelson. She recalled often waking to see the floor littered with songwriters.<\/p>\n
Her brother, Dale, recounted recording with his mother the tearjerker \u201cMommy Can I Still Call Him Daddy\u201d when he was four years old \u2014 with Chet Atkins producing.<\/p>\n
Skaggs was a prodigy who, by the time he was seven years old, had played mandolin on stage with Bill Monroe and on television with Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs. While still a teenager he, along with his good friend Keith Whitley, became members of Ralph Stanley\u2019s fabled band, the Clinch Mountain Boys. These achievements proclaimed him a natural son to the main founding fathers of bluegrass music.<\/p>\n
When Skaggs, signed to a major label and producing his own records, began regularly topping the country charts in the early 1980s, it became evident that his creativity ranged beyond bluegrass, even as the genre remained his musical core.<\/p>\n
As Monroe lay dying, Skaggs often sat at his bedside. During one visit, he took the same mandolin Monroe had allowed him to play when he was six, and cheered the old man with a blazing romp through \u201cRawhide,\u201d the instrumental Monroe had composed and made famous.<\/p>\n
After playing in various other bluegrass configurations, Skaggs took a turn toward country as a member of Emmylou Harris\u2019 Hot Band. There he reinforced Harris\u2019 bluegrass underpinnings and dueted with her on \u201cThe Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn\u201d on her 1980\u00a0Roses in the Snow<\/em>\u00a0album.<\/p>\n Brooks, Cordle and Hull kicked off the tribute to Skaggs with \u201cHighway 40 Blues,\u201d a song Cordle had written while he and Skaggs were still living in Eastern Kentucky and which Skaggs promised to record if he ever got a record deal.<\/p>\n He did better than that, arching the song to No. 1 in 1983 and turning it into a country and bluegrass standard. Brooks gave Cordle and Hull the spotlight, only occasionally moving forward to the microphone, his hands thrust in his pockets, to sing a verse or join in the harmony.<\/p>\n Next in line was Dierks Bentley, who fell in love with bluegrass during his frequent visits to Nashville\u2019s Station Inn. He sang the mournful Skaggs hit, also from 1983, \u201cYou\u2019ve Got a Lover.\u201d<\/p>\n Bentley told the crowd that two of his band members had earlier worked in Skaggs\u2019 band and that one of the first albums he\u2019d bought while studying harmony was Skaggs and Whitley\u2019s Second Generation Bluegrass.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll do what I can with this, Mr. Skaggs,\u201d Chris Stapleton said humbly, as he launched into \u201cThe Darkest Hour Is Just Before Dawn.\u201d And he did quite well, accompanying himself on guitar, as the Medallion Band seated behind him remained quiet. When he finished, he walked to the edge of the stage, leaned down and shook Skaggs\u2019 hand.<\/p>\n Brooks returned to the stage to induct Skaggs. As usual, he presented himself as a bumbler, incapable, he claimed, of presenting Skaggs with the eloquence due him. Naturally, he was beyond eloquent. He described how Skaggs, Reba McEntire and George Strait had returned country music to its strongest roots while paving the way for the masterful Randy Travis.<\/p>\n He said there was \u201ca thin line between craziness and genius\u201d and that Skaggs\u2019 apparent craziness \u2014 such as releasing the old Bill Monroe chestnut, \u201cUncle Pen,\u201d as a single \u2014 became genius when the song soared to No. 1.<\/p>\n Brooks said all his teachers at Oklahoma State University boasted Ph. D. degrees but that none of them spoke to him, \u201ca 19-year-old kid,\u201d as forcefully as Skaggs\u2019 music did.<\/p>\n Skaggs came up to claim his medallion and unveil his plaque that depicts him with the long-white hair he\u2019s worn for the past several years. He lauded his mother and dad \u2014 not just for their musical encouragement but for their religious teachings as well. Then, gesturing toward his wife, Sharon White, he exclaimed, \u201cAnd, oh, my sweet Sharon, how I love you always and forever.\u201d<\/p>\n From there on Skaggs read through a list that included his two brothers, his children and grandchildren, all the members of his office staff, his attorney and publicist and various fundamentalist ministers, among whom were Billy and Franklin Graham and Bob Jones.<\/p>\n He said he could \u2014 and should \u2014 spend an entire evening thanking Harris for her help in bringing him to international attention. He said he was grateful, too, to country radio \u2014 \u201cnot now so much but back then.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, he directed his affections to Brooks. \u201cGarth, you booger, you\u2019ve done more for country music than anyone I know.\u201d<\/p>\n Young told Brooks he should remove Skaggs\u2019 medallion temporarily so it wouldn\u2019t scratch Monroe\u2019s treasured Gibson F-5, which he asked Skaggs to play as he led the crowd in \u201cWill the Circle Be Unbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n Holding the mandolin in front of him, Skaggs talked to it as if it were alive. \u201cYou look great,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat about [my] hair? Like a Shetland pony? Yeah, I\u2019ve heard that.\u201d<\/p>\n As he concluded the song and the crowd started drifting out of the auditorium. He said to the mandolin, \u201cI know it\u2019s lonely in there\u201d [the glass museum case]. \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to drop you.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month, Skaggs was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and in 2016 to the Musicians Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n Once the ceremonies were over, most of the crowd retreated to the museum\u2019s sixth floor, overlooking downtown Nashville, where table after table of food, drink and desserts awaited them.<\/p>\n The Gibson F-5 did not attend.<\/p>\n As usual, the Medallion Band was the evening\u2019s musical backbone. Its members were Biff Watson (bandleader and acoustic guitar), Eddie Bayers Jr. (drums), Thom Flora and Tania Hancheroff (vocals), Paul Franklin (steel guitar), Brent Mason (electric guitar), Carmella Ramsey (vocals and fiddle), Michael Rhodes (bass), Deanie Richardson (fiddle and mandolin), Matt Rollings (keyboard) and Jeff White (acoustic guitar and vocals).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The lineup of artists that welcomed\u00a0Ricky Skaggs,\u00a0Dottie West\u00a0and\u00a0Johnny Gimble\u00a0into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville Sunday night (Oct. 21) could have filled the cavernous Bridgestone Arena, which sat just across the street from the Hall, many times over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[321,323,324,322],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722694-1540220481.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmni.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052723268-1540220601.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Sierra")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052723530-1540220638.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Ricky")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722578-1540233861.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Country")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cmt.mtvnimages.com\/uri\/mgid:file:http:shared:cmt.com\/news\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/10\/GettyImages-1052722694-1540220481.jpg?quality=0.8&format=jpg&width=1800\" "\\"Ricky")
<\/p>\n