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The Louisville native has been a professional musician - a bassist, specifically - in this city, Nashville, Fort Lauderdale, Miami and places beyond for almost thirty years. He's performed with other local stars like Steve Ferguson, Tim Krekel, Winston Hardy and The Roadmasters, Mickey Clark and The Cumberlands. He's played with Billy Swan (of I Can Help one-hit-wonder fame), met and played with Johnny and Edgar Winter, met Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and was once a substitute performer for The Kingston Trio. He's also been in original bands (The Breathers) and cover groups (Chopper and The Lonestar Band - at the beginning of the Urban Cowboy craze of the early 1980's). His recordings have been released on vinyl in Germany and New Zealand. And he spent eighteen months as a bassist in the TNT Showband aboard the Sovereign Of The Seas, a cruise liner operated by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. "I played Born To Be Wild as part of a medley, wearing a white tux," he said, more amazed than ashamed at the memory.
Rick Harper is a rocker, a folkie, a country crooner who uses wit and traditional sounds to get our attention instead of line-dance meathooks. He is one of Louisville's connections to the music world outside the city.
Rick and I first met at the Butchertown Pub last March, prior to a performance by Iko-Iko. His CD Rickenharper had been released a couple of months earlier. It had, according to Rick, been ignored by virtually everyone in town until Dan Reed started playing it during his morning show on WFPK. The release is a generous, more-than-70-minute collection of low and medium-fi songs mostly recorded using a handy portable studio recorders over 16 years and in various places - including his cabin aboard the Sovereign - either solo or with a band. Many of the tunes had been released already on Demo Teasers cassettes. The sounds and recording quality are consistent, belying the illusion that all 25 tracks were recorded over several months prior to release and not spaced over nearly two decades. He's followed that with HOOT, a collection of new music (including Gene Clark's So You Say You Lost Your Baby) due out this month. So his first full, major release is a greatest hits retrospective. How many performers can make that boast?
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