All about Hombre

 


Born in Fort Myers, FL in 1949, Richard Price was trained as a classical musician on violin, cello, organ and piano. He studied piano for 5 years and cello for 7 years. He was 1st chair from the seventh grade through his first year of college. He trained under local private instructors as well as a visiting European instructor in Sarasota, FL. At age 14 he taught himself to play bass guitar. He has now been playing the bass for about 58 years.

Richard was a member of a succession of bands in Florida during the 60s. Some of those early Sarasota bands included The Secrets, The Xtremes, The Chordaroys, The Missing Links, The Bits Of Difference, The Crystal Pain, and The Load (with Larry 'Rhino' Reinhardt who later played in Iron Butterfly and Captain Beyond).

The Crystal Pain was among the first, if not THE first, of the psychedelic bands in Florida. The Load was a power trio with Marshall stacks doing original psychedelic rock. Both bands opened for many famous bands during the 60s including The Seeds, The Standells, Sam the Sham and The Pharoahs, Vanilla Fudge, Moby Grape (with whom Richard played bass for one night), Canned Heat, Spirit, and many, many more.

In the early years of his career, Richard played a mixture of American and British rock, blues, soul, r & b, and pop. While he was in The Load, he was invited to move to Jacksonville, FL to live and play with The Second Coming (Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, and Reese Wynans new band). Both bands earned huge followings as the San Francisco sound swept across Florida. The two bands lived communally just a block apart. They started free Sunday "jams" in parks and sympathetic clubs and often played shows together to ensure large enough crowds for everyone to make some money.

Duane Allman and Jai Johnny Johnson began to join these jams on their visits from Muscle Shoals, AL. where Jerry Wexler, of Atlantic Records fame, was recording the classic soul tracks at the time. The jams were a creative explosion that became the birth of what would later be called Southern Rock in the press. In those days, Richard played countless hours with Duane, Gregg, Dickey, Berry, Jaimoe, Butch Trucks, and the gang. Soon, Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley left The Second Coming to help form The Allman Brothers Band. Reese Wynans and drummer John Meeks, along with former members of The Load (Richard, Rhino, and Monty Young) kept The Second Coming together.

The Second Coming and The Allman Brothers Band played around Florida in 1969 and both bands made records that year. The Second Coming's record deal eventually fell apart and the master recordings were forsaken for 26 years. Richard is currently working to release those historic tracks. The Allman Brothers released their self-titled debut album and moved to Macon, GA. The rest, as they say, is history.

Richard did some gospel music session work in Tampa, FL before deciding to move to Nashville, Tn. In Nashville, he began a long career of touring and recording session work with Vassar Clements, The Dave Perkins Band, The Outlaws, James Talley, Doug Dillard & Ginger Boatwright, Homesick James, Sonny Burgess (Elvis' guitar player), Billy Joe Shaver, and Lucinda Williams, among others. During the 1976 through 1979 period he played on a Jerry Jeff Walker recording "Too Old To Change". He played bass on the song written by Susanna Clark, "I'll Be Your San Antone Rose".

He played resoguitar on the song "Greenville" (which featured the duet vocals of Emmylou Harris) from Lucinda's Grammy-winning "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road". Richard toured in support of that record for 3 1/2 years in what many consider her best live band.

In the years following, Richard toured with The North Mississippi Allstars, Sue Foley, Kasey Chambers and others. He played on Sue's "Love Comin' Down" cd which won a Juno and 5 other awards. He played bass on "K.C. Jones" from The North Mississippi Allstars Grammy-nominated first cd along with Luther, Cody and Jim Dickinson. He also toured with Canadian blues and harp man Paul Reddick. Richard  helped create Gerry Groom's two posthumously-released cd's which included guitarist Mick Taylor. At one time, Richard had played bass in 3 live shows with Gerry and Mick.

In the early 90s, Richard met and began playing with Americana artist, Hayseed, eventually co-producing Hayseed's two records, "Melic" and "In Other Words...". Hayseed's critcally acclaimed debut, "Melic", featured two duets with Lucinda Williams and one with Joy Lynn White. On the follow-up record, "In Other Words...", Joy Lynn returned and Hayseed was also joined by Emmylou Harris on the old hymn, "Farther Along" (which was featured on No Depression Magazine's genre-defining compilation "What It Sounds Like: Volume I"). In addition to his co-producing responsibilities, Richard played guitar, bass, and reso-guitar on both records. "Melic" was to be nominated for independent project of the year, but contractual difficulties interfered because of time.

He Co-produced and played several instruments on the Boston-based band, The Darlings' record, "New Depression." It was nominated for Independent Record Of The Year in Boston. That record featured a talented young fiddle player, Carrie Rodriguez. Carrie has since gone on to fame as the duo partner for celebrated songwriter, Chip Taylor. In fact, Chip discovered Carrie when she was playing with Richard and Hayseed in Austin, TX during the SXSW music festival. Chip came to the show to visit Richard and heard Carrie play for the first time. Again, it was history in the making.

While he was still in Nashville, Richard rejoined his old friend, Reese Wynans, in a band with Dave Perkins called Ultra Fix. They recorded some tracks of what has been described as "intense punk-edged blues". That record was not released at the time but is now released as of May 2009. It was named, Pistol City Holiness and was nominated for a Grammy. Shortly after those sessions, Richard moved back to Sarasota, FL.

Upon returning to Florida, Richard met up with a friend from his teenage years blues harmonica master Rock Bottom. Together, they worked on one of Rock's last recordings called "Woodlawn Fats & The Worthless Bums of Rhythm". That record has been called a "hilarious but serious blues record full of jail songs." Richard joined Rock in The Accelerators until Rock's untimely death in 2001. Richard also did a tour in Florida with Canadian bluesman Paul Reddick during this time. Richard continued touring the south with The Accelerators for a while after Rock's death, including backing Bo Diddley, until forming his own band, Blue Swamp.

With Blue Swamp, Richard teamed up with yet another old friend, Larry "Rhino" Reinhardt. Richard currently wrote songs and produced a project called Blue Swamp. Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band, Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie, Reese Wynans of Stevie Ray Vaughn and Johnny Neal of The Allman Brothers Band and his own band are also guests on the Blue Swamp cd. Blue Swamp played shows throughout Florida. In a way, Blue Swamp brings Richard full circle back in Sarasota.

Richard still produces and plays with other artists in the studio and occasionally lends his "in the pocket" groove to their live shows. He can be seen working with artists such as Sandy Atkinson, Constant Vigil, Rastus Kain, the Lauren Mitchell Band and Sean Chambers. He worked in a production company with Bud Snyder, the famed Southern Rock engineer and producer who studied with the legendary Tom Dowd.
Richard most recently played bass and one track of Reso slide on rising songwriter star Roy Schneider's new cd Ten From The Pen. He also played on and Co-Produced a new cd by Tomcat Blake
titled, Somewhere In Between. It is a great mix of blues, r&b, country and americana.


And there are still chapters to write in the story of the man they call... Hombre