Skaggs Family Christmas feat. Skaggs Family, Steven Curtis Chapman & Emmylou Harris: at Ryman Auditorium (Nashville, TN) Thu. December 6, 2012

Skaggs Family Christmas feat. Skaggs Family, Steven Curtis Chapman & Emmylou Harris

Concert for Cumberland Heights

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

Presented this year as the 15th Annual Concert for Cumberland Heights, an alcohol and drug addiction treatment center, the Skaggs Family Christmas enters its 10th year with as much warmth and charm as ever. Some elements of the program rarely change — father-in-law Buck White’s recitation of “The Christmas Guest” is a welcome recurring highlight, and so is the inevitable reading of the Tex Logan-penned Bill Monroe favorite “Christmas Time’s A-Comin’ ” — but the clan always takes a fresh look at the set list, rotating chestnuts and the occasional new composition in and out of the lineup with a finely tuned sense of balance. Luke Skaggs, Rachel Leftwich and her husband, Kentucky Thunder fiddler Andy Leftwich, do a fine job of representing the younger generation, and the Rickster’s likely to show that he’s still one of the finest singers ever to stand on the Ryman stage.

—JON WEISBERGER