The album everyone expected after their award never came in the 1980s.
It arrived in 2014, after Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White had already been married for thirty three years.
By then it was no longer a simple follow up to a hit duet. It was a record made by two people who had actually lived the family, faith, difficulty and commitment inside the songs.
From the industry view Hearts Like Ours came late. From the marriage view it arrived when it finally could.
Bring a covered dish and a guitar.
A Wedding Inside The Music
Ricky joked before the wedding that guests should bring a covered dish and a guitar, and the line sounded casual while also telling the truth.
He and Sharon married in August 1981 after meeting through the same traditional country and bluegrass circles that had shaped both of their lives.
Music was not something either of them added to the relationship. It was already there in their childhoods, their families, their faith, their professional instincts and the world that brought them together.
Ricky came from bluegrass, steeped in the hard precision of mountain music and the old country sounds he would soon help bring back to radio. Sharon came from The Whites, singing with her father Buck and sister Cheryl in a family group where harmony was a sound and also a way of living.
A wedding could be a family gathering, a musical gathering and a promise all at once.
Careers Moving On Both Sides Of The Glass
From the start their private life and professional life were never going to stay neatly separate.
Sharon continued singing with The Whites and carried forward the family sound that had given her a deep place in country and bluegrass circles.
Rickyβs solo career accelerated almost immediately, carrying him through a remarkable run of country hits during the 1980s along with awards, television appearances and a reputation as an artist helping country music reconnect with its traditional roots.
He also produced records for The Whites, which meant husband and wife could spend one day inside family life and the next working on opposite sides of a studio microphone.
In harmony one voice must know when to lead and when to support. It must listen as closely as it sings and serve the whole sound rather than only itself.
That lesson belonged to their music. It also belonged to their marriage.
The Duet That Made An Album Seem Obvious
In 1986 they finally recorded together as a couple.
Love Canβt Ever Get Better Than This placed Sharon beside Ricky rather than behind him in the credits.
Released the following year, the duet reached the country Top 10 and earned them the 1987 CMA Award for Vocal Duo of the Year.
A full album together seemed like the obvious next step.
It never happened.
Sharon was signed to Warner Bros. while Ricky was with Epic. Years later he remembered the situation as a business mess with two competing labels, neither willing to let the project belong to the other.
The marriage kept moving while the album stayed unwritten. They raised children, toured separately and together, watched careers change direction and carried the idea with them long after its commercial moment had passed.
An Album Strengthened By The Wait
Only in 2014 did they finally record Hearts Like Ours.
Sharon said the songs meant something different by then because they had lived through decades together before singing them as an album.
The young couple of the 1980s had talent, love and opportunity, but they had not yet raised the children, weathered the seasons or learned what thirty three years can teach.
By 2014 they did not need the album to prove they belonged together. They already had.
It was not a career launch, an award follow up or a label strategy. It was a document of two people who had kept singing, kept believing and kept enough tenderness alive to return to an idea the industry had once delayed.
The business had missed its moment. The marriage had not.
The album arrived far too late to capitalize on their 1987 award, and that was partly what made it matter. What the record industry delayed for practical reasons became something neither of them could have made in quite the same way when they were young.
It did not arrive in time to capitalize on an award. It arrived in time to tell the truth.
Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to the music.