LONE REDNECKis the story of a passion.
That of Rick, the singer.
A passion ....
For a guitar given to him one day at the age of 12 by his grandfather, who gave him a taste for music.
For the rock'n'roll that is his whole life, and for which he knows every intonation, every bar, every version of every tune,
For country and rockabilly music, for which he masters every chord,
For the Civil War and his love of the American South.
This blend is the heart of Lone Redneck, its soul is Rick's.
The story wasn't written in a day, and it took hours of work and learning, alone, to master the song and the instrument.
The discovery of chords was made by ear with That's All right Mama, but the revelation came with Eddie Cochran's Something Else. The palette quickly broadened: Elvis, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, ... A few personal compositions begin to take shape.
Rock led him to country music, with Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Lynyrd Skynyrd, rockabilly and all the music that grew out of the blues and with it rock'n'roll.
As they met new people and formed new friendships, the spectrum broadened and the desire to compose became more concrete. In 1994, the first tracks were released on CD under the Too Hot Rock label, with a quartet formation featuring a (pretty) girl on drums, rhythm guitar and double bass, plus Rick on guitar and vocals. The band played pubs, biker nights, festivals and rock festivals.
After a stint in gospel music comes REDNECKS, a trio in which Rick remains the main man on vocals and guitar, assisted at first by another female voice, for whom he writes and composes. The trio honed its skills, performed live, and released two CDs: a Tribute to Eddie Cochran, and a second on which most of the tracks were Rick's own compositions, lyrics and music.
And then, because there can't be two stars in one band, the trio split up.
In 2008, REDNECKS became a story of friendship. Hervé, a professional musician, gave the band a new sound and marked a musical turning point. LC WALKER, a friend for fifteen years who had been in the shadows, became, on a play on words, the damned soul, the other side, the alter of the ego, and the harmonica became an integral part of the REDNECKS sound.
The trio becomes a quartet, and a more accomplished album is released:
Southern Heritage, available for download on Itunes, Virginmega, Amzon, Deezer, Spotify...
It tells the story of these Southerners, no better and no worse than the others, who lived their lives mixing traditions, cotton growing, love of their land, no more slaves than in the rest of the country but stigmatized as such, and who were just trying, for the vast majority of them, to live.
This is the story that Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton and Dwight Yoakam sing so well, the story of a South that the North pretended to deliver from a yoke that didn't exist here any more than anywhere else, and that a pretext for remaining in a Union that didn't exist plunged into a fratricidal war.
Rick developed an unshakeable passion for it, and embraced its music, customs and cause.
2013 ... another turning point...a page is turned...REDNECKS becomes Lone Redneck...
Rick is surrounded by LCWalker on harmo, Serge on bass and Eric on drums.
The band tours all the stages of France, and in November 2014 releases its second album, Gone With the War, already on reissue.
Today's South may be nothing like it was in 1861, but Lousianne will always be remembered as the land of jazz, Mississippi as the land of blues, and Tennessee as the land of rock.
Take Route 61 from New Orleans to Nashville, and then you'll know...
Listen to Rick's voice and then you'll know.
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