Chapter 15
A Sound from Deep Within

Returning to how the ‘lonesome’ sound came about, the Kentucky born bluegrass singer songwriter, Ricky Skaggs has a theory. He believes it developed over the centuries from an Irish source: ‘the Irish tunes had a happy lilt...and those tunes were brought over to America years and years ago and it seems as if those first or second-generation children that grew up playing those tunes started missing their homeland and missing their folks. There was a sadness and a pining and a lonesomeness that just seemed to enter the music, and you know when your heart’s broken...your gonna play from your heart, your gonna play much more lonesome feelings and to me that’s where that Appalachian Mountain, that High Lonesome Sound, came into being.’