An Evening With Cooder, White & Skaggs
Center Stage Theater
Sunday April 3, 2016
Doors 7 / Show 8 / All Ages
$44-$57 Reserved
• All Ages Welcome
• Assigned, reserved seating
• Tickets available online via Ticketmaster.com or without ticket fees in person at the Center Stage Box Office, M-F, 11-6. Online sales end at 5pm on day of show.
Ry Cooder is a virtuoso roots guitarist who is steeped in the blues but has spent much of his career exploring new musical worlds from Tex-Mex to Cuban bolero. He has won 6 GRAMMY awards, most recently for Best Traditional Latin Album (2003) and Best Pop Instrumental Album (2003). In 1997, Ry Cooder traveled to Cuba to produce and play with a group of son musicians who had little exposure outside of their homeland. The resulting album, Buena Vista Social Club, was a platinum-selling international success that made stars of Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, and Ruben Gonzalez, and earned Cooder another GRAMMY. Wim Wenders directed the documentary film of the same name (1999), which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000. He has collaborated with an incredible variety of artists over the years including Nick Lowe and John Hiatt (Little Village), The Chieftains, Ali Farka Toure, John Hassell and Manuel Galban. Ry has written scores for over 16 major motion pictures for directors for Walter Hill, Mike Nichols, Louie Malle, Tony Richardson and Wim Wenders. In 2011, City Lights published his critically acclaimed book “Los Angeles Stories.” Ry Cooder has released 17 solo records since 1970 as well as several compilations.
As a member of beloved country-gospel family band, The Whites, Sharon White has been making music alongside her father Buck and sister Cheryl for more than 40 years. Both with The Whites and as a solo artist, Sharon White has won multiple awards, including GRAMMY, CMA and Dove Awards, among others. The Whites have been esteemed members of the Grand Ole Opry since 1984, and they appear on the world famous Opry stage nearly every weekend. Sharon White and her family trio became well known for their string of Country hits in the 1980s, including “Hangin’ Around,” “Give Me Back That Old Familiar Feeling,” and “Pins and Needles.” With the release of Hearts Like Ours (2014), a dream came true for Sharon White of The Whites and her husband, country and bluegrass music legend Ricky Skaggs. Previously in 1987 the pair won a CMA Vocal Duo of the Year award for “Love Can’t Ever Get Better Than This.” This first-ever studio album is produced by Skaggs and White and features the couple dueting on handpicked country love songs.
Over the course of his 40 plus year career, Ricky Skaggs has won 14 Grammy Awards, 8 CMA Awards, 9 ACM Awards, 11 IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Assn.) Awards, 9 ICM Awards, 2 Dove Awards, 3 honorary Doctorate degrees and countless other awards. Ricky has had 12 #1 singles on the Billboard Country charts and 12 Top 20 Country albums. Ricky has twelve consecutive Grammy-nominated albums, all from his own Skaggs Family Records label. In 2012, Ricky Skaggs was inducted into the GMA’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame. Past recipients of this prestigious award include Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton. That same year, Ricky received the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music (ACM). In 2013, Grand Ole Opry member Ricky Skaggs released his first-ever autobiography, “Kentucky Traveler: My Life In Music.” The book details the life and times of Skaggs and provides a descriptive history of Country and Bluegrass music, as told by the master himself.