For nearly 40 years, Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White have shown how beautiful it can be for two people in love to make music. After decades of being happily married, the couple still loves music as much as they love each other.
Skaggs had already been married once before to Brenda Stanley and shared two children with her, Andrew and Mandy. But the bluegrass country singer wouldn't find the one until he met Sharon White of the country music group, The Whites. White was in the group along with her sister Cheryl and father Buck White. While we don't know where they met for the first time, we know that the couple said "I Do" on Aug. 4, 1981, and commemorated the occasion with a Townes Van Zandt song "If I Needed You."
"Our pastor said, 'What if you did your unity candle symbol in songs rather than candles?" White told Billboard.
"He sings one to you, you to him, and you sing together.' We liked that idea, and this was the one we sang together. We had no idea how hard it was going to be to do. We were both very emotional."
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Despite respective fans being anxious that the new couple would release a duets album, that didn't happen until Hearts Like Ours was released in 2014 via the Skaggs Family Records. Skaggs told The Boot that their collaboration had been a long time coming, especially since they had already won a CMA award together.
"Well, 33 years of knowing someone like I know Sharon, and her knowing me like she does, that's worth something when you're working on a project together. You know, part of it was the busyness of life. We had a single out in the '80s called 'Love Can't Ever Get Better Than This.' That was '87, and it was CMA Vocal Duo of the Year, and we thought then, 'What a great time to capitalize on this. What a great time, we've got some momentum, let's go in and do a record.'"
During their marriage, Skaggs and White welcomed two children together, Molly and Lucas. Throughout his career, Skaggs continued rack up hits on the country charts and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2018. Despite all of their career successes, the couple told Today Christian Woman that they have a secret to their long and happy marriage.
"Do the right thing, no matter what. And never go to bed angry."
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