Ricky Skaggs at 7 years old. Not bad, ‘lil fella.

52 years later, an interview with Fresh Air.

Ken Tucker, on Ricky Skaggs’ new album Mosaic: Skaggs is singing about his Christian faith in strong yet delicate tones. But the tunes aren’t the rigorous bluegrass ones we’ve come to expect. Instead, he’s trying out variations on pop melodies, and he frequently sets his mandolin aside so that his plaintive declarations can be heard with greater starkness. (Picture: Erick Anderson)

“I’ve got tapes that I’m so thankful that my father made — old reel-to-reel tapes. I’ve got a ton of those things at home. He kept those like fine diamonds, I mean he kept them, you know, in a box and was very, very careful of them, you know. And I’ve got a bunch of those things at home, and it’s amazing now as I go through and listen to them how well I could play when I was 6, 7, 8 years old.” — Ricky Skaggs (Image: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)