Recordings
A small number of copies of "Rick's Blues / Live at Blue Lake" is available @ $12, post-paid. This is the KHUM radio transcript of my set at the Buddy Brown Blues Fest last August, except for one tune, "Walking Blues" by Robert Johnson, studio-recorded and inserted in place of the live version. Half of the tunes (13) feature blues harp by Doug Holsclaw. Eight of the tunes are originals by Rick.
Photo by Lori Oehlert
Photo by Lori Oehlert
The new 11-song slide guitar CD, Mr. Gen-U-Wine Plays Bottleneck Slide Guitar, has now been printed. Re-recording and mastering was by Mike Kapitan of Groove Time Studios in Arcata, and duplication and graphic work were by Bongo Boy Studios of McKinleyville. The tunes have been transcribed, and now the book to accompany the CD is available! 28 pages, with notes and charts and original illustrations, and the CD in a sleeve on the back cover. See ordering page for further information.
Photo by Miriam Applebaum
Respected top-40 music producer Eric Beall, author of the very entertaining book, Making Music Make Money(Berklee Press), has recently listened to Rick's recordings and says, "I particularly liked Benedicite . . . . The guitar playing is great." And of "Playlist Blues," Eric says, "The lyrics are very clever."
Photo by Miriam Applebaum
Respected top-40 music producer Eric Beall, author of the very entertaining book, Making Music Make Money(Berklee Press), has recently listened to Rick's recordings and says, "I particularly liked Benedicite . . . . The guitar playing is great." And of "Playlist Blues," Eric says, "The lyrics are very clever."
Rick Park's CD, "Shakespeare and the Sonettes: The Bard's Blues" - WL 106 has sold all 200 copies of the first edition, and only a few dozen copies remain of the second edition. All songs are "live" in the studio, basically one guy and a guitar, with minimal corrections. Vocal harmonies were added in later by "the Sonettes", Donna Hyatt, director of the 2006 SF Free Folk Fest, and Suzanne Fox, long-time President of the Board of Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. The CD has 10 songs: Five original blues songs telling the stories of Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, King Lear, Othello, and RicharSd III, interspersed with modern fingerstyle versions of four Elizabethan and one Edwardian tune:Listen: Mistress Mine Where are you Roaming? (12th Night), Lover and Lass (All's Well That Ends Well), Come Live with Me & Be My Love (Andrew Marvel poem), (Nothing up my) Greensleeves, and One Morning in May.
Photo by Donna Scarlett
Photo by Donna Scarlett
REVIEWS for SHAKESPEARE AND THE SONETTES: THE BARD'S BLUES:
From Eric Beall: "The Romeo and Juliet song is very, very clever . . . . You're a very adept, funny, engaging lyricist."
A phone call from a Mt. Shasta fan named Joel Dunsany, was relayed to Rick Park by Suttertown Press publisher, Tim Holt. Joel said: "Tim just played me the new CD and I want to tell you, good work deserves to be praised! It was clever, it was funny, your singing is strong, the guitar playing is tasty as you please, the two women's voices harmonize just beautifully. I guarantee you, the audience would love this......... Good work, man, just excellent stuff."
From Rick's friend of 20 years, Cathy Rohm, who now has a position as a DJ on little radio KFOK out of Greenwood, CA, said: "Listened to it. LOVED it!"
A review written by Nick Holbrook, a 30-year member of the SF Folk Music Club, for the May 2006 issue of their internationally distributed newsletter, Folknik: "Do you like unusual, thoughtful songs? Do you like humor? Do you like erudition? Do you like Shakespeare? Do you like good solid melodies played by an award-winning fingerpicker? Look no further: run, don't walk, to your nearest CD source and get Rick Park's latest album "Shakespeare and the Sonettes: The Bard's Blues." With the help of his friends Neil Young (the Canyon studio meister) and Donna Hyatt and Suzanne Fox (backup vocals - playfully named the Sonettes), Rick has put together an album that is historic in more than one way. Five of the songs are his own, in the unique style fans have known for decades, summarizing Shakespeare's tragedies (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Othello, and Richard III) - but they are tales told by a master satirist full of fun and humor. The other five songs are oldies that are so golden they're mostly from the Bard's own time - the newest is Edwardian (practically hip-hop!). And all of course are bound together by Rick's unmistakably smooth guitar phrasing. Buy it now or be lost to the lessons of hysterical musical history!" Note: It was Nick who also reviewed Pavarotti Dreams tape in the Folknik newsletter, some 20 years ago.
From Eric Beall: "The Romeo and Juliet song is very, very clever . . . . You're a very adept, funny, engaging lyricist."
A phone call from a Mt. Shasta fan named Joel Dunsany, was relayed to Rick Park by Suttertown Press publisher, Tim Holt. Joel said: "Tim just played me the new CD and I want to tell you, good work deserves to be praised! It was clever, it was funny, your singing is strong, the guitar playing is tasty as you please, the two women's voices harmonize just beautifully. I guarantee you, the audience would love this......... Good work, man, just excellent stuff."
From Rick's friend of 20 years, Cathy Rohm, who now has a position as a DJ on little radio KFOK out of Greenwood, CA, said: "Listened to it. LOVED it!"
A review written by Nick Holbrook, a 30-year member of the SF Folk Music Club, for the May 2006 issue of their internationally distributed newsletter, Folknik: "Do you like unusual, thoughtful songs? Do you like humor? Do you like erudition? Do you like Shakespeare? Do you like good solid melodies played by an award-winning fingerpicker? Look no further: run, don't walk, to your nearest CD source and get Rick Park's latest album "Shakespeare and the Sonettes: The Bard's Blues." With the help of his friends Neil Young (the Canyon studio meister) and Donna Hyatt and Suzanne Fox (backup vocals - playfully named the Sonettes), Rick has put together an album that is historic in more than one way. Five of the songs are his own, in the unique style fans have known for decades, summarizing Shakespeare's tragedies (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Othello, and Richard III) - but they are tales told by a master satirist full of fun and humor. The other five songs are oldies that are so golden they're mostly from the Bard's own time - the newest is Edwardian (practically hip-hop!). And all of course are bound together by Rick's unmistakably smooth guitar phrasing. Buy it now or be lost to the lessons of hysterical musical history!" Note: It was Nick who also reviewed Pavarotti Dreams tape in the Folknik newsletter, some 20 years ago.