McKinney -- It really was more than a great bluegrass show that brought music fans to historic downtown McKinney April 2.  When you watch Ricky Skaggs wrap his hand around that mandolin, you're watching a man do exactly what he was put on earth to do.

Fresh on the heels of a performance Thursday night in legendary Gruene Hall, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder rumbled into McKinney Friday evening for a sold out show at McKinney Performing Arts Center in historic downtown McKinney.

The 14-time Grammy Award-winner was quick to point out the advantages McKinney's Courtroom Theatre has over the oldest dancehall in Texas.

"We need to take up a collection and get those folks some air conditioning down there," Skaggs joked with the crowd. "It was a great audience, though.  They were on their feet for two hours.  We thought we were really gettin' to 'em until we realized, hey, they ain't got no chairs in here!"

Fans who hadn't seen the perennial bluegrass Grammy winner lately may not have been familiar with the new longer-haired look, but when the band took off it was that same good ol’ mountain music that Skaggs learned as a boy in Eastern Kentucky, sitting at the feet of old-time masters -- mandolin, fiddle and banjo players his daddy knew.

"If you like bluegrass, you're gonna have a good time tonight," Skaggs promised.

Kentucky Thunder backed up every word.

Ricky Skaggs is more than the man who, maybe more than anyone else out there today, carries the mantle passed down from men like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers and a select few others that Skaggs refers to as "the fathers of bluegrass."

Skaggs lived a good bit of that history, himself. 

As a six-year-old, "Little Ricky Skaggs" was called onstage to perform with Bill Monroe's band.  Monroe strapped his mandolin around the boy from Cordell, Kentucky and Skaggs led the boys in the band through their paces on, "Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?"

"That was my hit for the night," Skaggs recalled, "and I picked the right song, too, because the band knew it."

Mr. Monroe would have smiled to see "Little Ricky" Friday night.

Skaggs is a tall, imposing figure with a mane of flowing white hair these days, but he dedicated an hour of his show in McKinney to the man who reached down into the Kentucky crowd back in 1960 and lifted a little boy by the arm onto the stage.

When you consider the long line of incredible musicians that came down the trail to combine talents with Skaggs over the years, it leaves you wondering if this man is incredibly lucky or truly blessed.

As humble as Skaggs is, he might just say "both."

In his teens, Skaggs had already teamed up with another prodigy, Keith Whitley.   Skaggs and Whitley opened for Frank Stanley before being asked to join Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys.

Skaggs and Whitley would both eventually move on to play with J.D. Crowe and New South, a band that included everyone's favorite dobro player, Jerry Douglas, and guitar-whiz, Toni Rice.

Skaggs was an integral part of Emmylou Harris's Hot Band and a fortunate few got to watch The White Band back up Emmylou & company.  Skaggs sang and played mandolin, guitar and fiddle, James Burton was on lead guitar, Rodney Crowell lent his considerable skill to the mix, while Emmylou and the White sisters harmonized like earthbound angels. Skaggs has been married to Sharon White since 1982.

But the audience at McKinney Performing Arts Center didn't just get an inside look at music history; they also watched history being made when Skaggs gave his first live performance of a song that will be on an album due out this summer. 

Skaggs is uncomfortable at being labeled a Christian artist, a genre that at times may not achieve success on its own merits.  He looked over the audience on Good Friday and proclaimed, "But, I'm a Christian and I'm an artist."

The new song, "Can't Shake Jesus," was written by Gordon Kennedy.

Skaggs seems more determined to be a world-class musician and take his message to the masses than to wear a label on his sleeve, but no one is quicker to pay tribute to the virtues of Christianity.

He uses gospel metaphors to explain everything from why his mother's fried chicken was unforgettable to the path that took him from traditional mountain music to commercial country music and now back to the pristine music his daddy taught him, again.

"We wandered in the wilderness of country music," Skaggs says with a smile, "until finding our way back to the promised land of bluegrass."

Welcome, home, Ricky.