Blue Grass Legend Ricky Skaggs Headlines Two-Day Country Music salute at Performance Hall

Northridge, CA: Blue Grass legend Ricky Skaggs and his band, Kentucky Thunder ride into the Plaza del Sol Performance Hall (formerly the Performing Arts Center) on Saturday, April 14, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m. for a two-day campus-wide salute to Country Music!

For the next month, special front orchestra tickets have been reserved for CSUN faculty and staff, and tickets regularly priced at $60 are only $50. Student tickets for this stellar event are only $30. Call the ticket office at 818-677-2488 for the very best seats-first come, first served!

Beyond his award-winning records, Ricky continues to lead the charge in bringing renewed vitality to country music's most down-to-earth art form, and has become one of bluegrass' most talented and dynamic performers-carrying this lively, distinctively American form of music to the hearts of audiences across the country.

2006 marked Ricky's 35th year as a professional musician, and this eleven-time Grammy Award winner continues to do his part to lead the recent roots revival in music. Known affectionately today as bluegrass music's official ambassador, Ricky has brought the genre to greater levels of popularity in the past few years than the father of bluegrass music - the legendary Bill Monroe - could ever have imagined.

With seven consecutive Grammy- nominated classics behind him, all from his own Skaggs Family Records label, (Bluegrass Rules! in 1998, Ancient Tones in 1999, both Soldier of the Cross and Big Mon: The Songs of Bill Monroe in 2000, History of the Future in 2001, Live at the Charleston Music Hall in 2003 and currently, Brand New Strings) bluegrass music is undoubtedly in good hands, with the masterful Skaggs at the helm. In 2005, his album Brand New Strings earned him another Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album - marking his 11th career Grammy win.

Skaggs first all-live album with Kentucky Thunder, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder - Live at the Charleston Music Hall, helped the band net the award for the IBMA's Instrumental Group of the Year. (This is an award Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder has won seven out of the last eight years!) The decision to record a live album was an obvious one for Skaggs - the current configuration of Kentucky Thunder ranks among the best group of musicians with whom he has ever worked.

Ricky Skaggs has often said that he is "just trying to make a living" playing the music he loves. But it's clear that his passion for bluegrass puts him in the position to bring this lively, distinctively American form of music out of isolation and into the ears and hearts of audiences across the country and around the world. Blessed with a close-knit family, an abundance of talent, a lifetime of musical experience and a crack band behind him, Ricky Skaggs is well on the way to showing the world that "country rocks, but Bluegrass Rules!"