TR Ritchie learned his musical
chops as a busker at the famed Pike Street Market of Seattle during the late '70's, a solid
apprenticeship that resulted in Not Just Another Pretty Songwriter, his first
recording, in 1984. The collection received excellent reviews regionally and not long afterwards
he was featured on a hot-selling regional anthology produced by Seattle radio station KEZX.
An increasingly busy concert schedule began taking him further afield, where he quickly established
a place for himself as a first-rate songwriter and performer.
Along the way songwriting awards
accumulated: a two-time finalist at the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk contest;
top honors from the Napa Valley (CA), Sisters (OR) and Jubilee (CO)
Folk Festival songwriting competitions; the only double-showcase songwriter in 2001 and
again in 2005 at the Walnut Valley Festival's New Artist Showcase in Kansas, and a 2005
finalist at the Mountain Stage Newsong Festival in West Virginia. More recently, in
2008 he won the Suzanne Milsap Songwriter's Showcase at the Snowbird Music Festival
(UT) and was invited back as a mainstage headliner in 2009.
Four more CDs have followed, Changing Of The Guard, Homeground, My Father's Wildest
Dream and his most recent, Wild Horses, released in June of 2009. After
seventeen years in the Northwest Ritchie relocated to the canyon country of southeast Utah and
has based his work from there for the past 15 years. In 2003 he lent advisory support to the
newly established Moab Folk Festival, appeared as the first mainstage performer and
served as festival emcee, a role he still enjoys as the festival enters its sixth year. He
continues to tour nationally, both as a solo and in support of long-time musical partner Cosy
Sheridan, and in 2008, along with Sheridan, founded the Moab Folk Camp, a week-long series
of music workshops held in conjunction with the Moab Folk Festival.
In concert Ritchie is spontaneous, engaging and spirited. He serves up his music with technical
grace and unwinds the narrative of his life and times in words and song. By turns witty, insightful
and philosophical, the natural storyteller in Ritchie delivers a gem of a performance every time
out. Armed with an acoustic guitar, a keen eye for observation and an ear for language, Ritchie
plies his trade. No bells or whistles. What you see is what you get: first-rate songs, written with
a poet's love of language and a storyteller's turn of phrase, performed with unapologetic enthusiasm
by a player at the top of his game.
He must be doing something right.
Progress reports arrive all the time - not from professional music critics but from ordinary people
with whom his music resonates deeply.
"I love your writing...clear,
concise, using very simple language, and damned clever without ever seeming like you are trying to
be." - Eric / Washington
"Thank you for writing such
thoughtful songs; I know they must be impacting many people. I thought you might like to know that
they impacted me in a very meaningful way." - Rosemary / Texas
"Terrific! Thanks so much."
- Katie / Ohio
"You are an exceptional
songwriter and performer." - Neil / Wyoming
"I love your music. Keep up
the good work." - Don / California.
"I attended a show in the
90s and it changed my life." - Stephen / Utah
Michael Terry, booking
coordinator for the long-running Dallas venue, Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse, sums things
up this way, "TR Ritchie must be the reincarnation of Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Guthrie, Samuel
Clemens and Will Rogers. How else to explain his great songs? His melodies are classics that will
stay with you for years. TR is one of the very best!"
