Richard was born on 28th August 1987 and was raised in what was not really a musical family. His first experience of music was probably when he was bought his first keyboard at the age of four or five and was shown some notes by his mother. He soon began playing simple tunes and when he was six, he was invited to take his keyboard into his primary school and play Christmas carols.
Also at the age of ten, he joined some local acting groups, including the Scunthorpe Youth Theatre, Group 62 Amateur Dramatic Society and Backstreet Youth Theatre, in which he took part in productions at many local venues, such as The Screen Theatre and The Plowright Theatre taking roles such as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet and Leroy in the musical Bugsy Malone.
In about 1998 Richard was lent some cassettes of country music by his grandfather. Up until this time, he hadn’t really experienced Country music and had mainly listened to sixties and seventies ballads. However, hearing Country music for the first time, he instantly took a liking to it and it was not long before he went to see his first Country music show, at a local club in Scunthorpe. Having seen the show, he decided to try and sing some of the songs he had heard the night before and, accompanying himself on guitar, had soon learnt his first Country song, Will The Circle Be Unbroken. Learning that first Country song set the ball rolling and from then on, Richard became a big fan of Country music, buying cassettes and CDs of artistes such as Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, Chris LeDoux and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
He had soon learnt quite a selection of songs and, at the age of thirteen, decided to learn a new instrument, the harmonica. In the summer of 2001, Richard wrote his first Country song Whole Life In A Shoebox about a tramp that carries all his photos and memories in an old shoebox and tells his story to passersby as he makes his way down the never-ending dusty roads. Eventually meeting with a woman, he discovers she is leading much the same life as himself and they set off together and spend many years walking down the ‘dusty roads’ together, carrying their shoeboxes and telling their tales to people that they meet. This song is the title track of his first CD.
In July 2002, Richard took his first booking as a Country music artist at The Covered Wagon CMC at North Searle. It wasn’t long before he was performing at many other pubs, clubs, festivals and holiday camps, including Walesby Festival 2002/3/4, Strumpshaw Festival 2003, Sapcote Festival 2003/4, Welbeck Festival 2003, Bridlington 2004, Pontin’s Pakefield and many others.
In 2004, Richard left college to pursue a full time career in the Country music business. In January 2005 he made his debut in the Hotdisc Independent British Top 10 charts at number 4, along with number 30 in the International Hotdisc Charts. Two months later, he reached No. 1 in the British Top 10, Charts and 15 in the International Charts. In the mid 2010 Richard stopped playing guitar on stage to enhance his stage presence. Richard won two BCMA awards for best vocalist in 2014 and 2015. He brought a guitar back to his stage act shortly before covid. During lockdown he started streaming every week and this quickly proved very popular.
Richard is best known now as a line dance entertainer and has won six CCN awards for Dance Act Of The Year in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2024, Five Crystals Boot awards for Dedicated Dance Act Of The Year in 2022, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 and three UK Line Dance Awards for Dance Act Of The Year in 2021, 2020. Despite his popularity as a line dance act he assures me he has a very varied repertoire and is happy to cater for any kind of audience and style of Country music.
Research by Nick Catford.