Rick Shea

For me the story comes first, the musical setting follows and an acoustic guitar seems like a good place to start, but sometimes you do need to plug in the Telecaster and put a little grit on things. Ive always liked the analogy that your songs are kind of like your children and for me I guess that means a few of mine may need to go to reform school.60 miles east of Los Angeles where the urban sprawl starts to thin out and the desert starts to take over sits the old railroad town of San Bernardino. In 1978 when Rick Shea was growing up there, dozens of honky-tonks and truck stop bars still lined the outskirts, tough places where the remnants of Californias golden age of country music still drifted through like the hot winds.I started playing folk and coffeehouse gigs after high school and sort of fell into the country music scene...as a sideman and a singer I worked 6 - 7 nights a week. It was rough sometimes but a good education, thats where I first heard a lot of those old songs - Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzell and Buck Owens - every night.Shea has managed to parlay that tough but real education into a successful career as a solo artist, with five critically acclaimed albums and appearances at the Strawberry Festival, the Tucson Folk Festival, the Canmore Folk Festival, the Freight and Salvage, McCabes and many of the other folk, rock and acoustic venues in California and the West.