Richard Day-Reynolds
Richard's mother, after giving up a operatic career in Europe to raise a family in Tennessee, started Richard on classical piano when he was four. At 7, he also took on the cello and his life long love of playing anything stringed was born. He discovered guitar when he was ten, stand up bass at 12, mandolin at 16, and in the years since has played (if not well, certainly enthusiastically) pedal steel, lap steel, dobro, banjo, and tenor, bass and baritone guitars. Through it all, he has always had a deep & abiding love of the instrument of voice. Growing up in the South, he sang in church and school choirs and was steeped in the rich, Southern gospel tradition. He attended the University of Tennessee (Go Vols) and studied to be a high school choir teacher.
While at UT, he met, played, partied with and was stylistically heavily influenced by Russell Smith (later the founder of the Amazing Rhythm Aces), and Russell's mix of blues, gospel, country, bluegrass and balls-out rock & roll. The South of the late-50's through most of the 70's was an incredible melting pot of musical genres before it melted down into Southern Rock testosterone-heavy posturings, and Richard continues to be influenced by the rich palette of music he grew up with to this day.
During the 70's he played with a number of primarily acoustic bands in Tennessee performing everything from Merle Haggard to Howling Wolf to Gram Parsons to Muddy Waters. Moving to Oregon in the late-70's, he performed as a solo acoustic act until he signed on as a guitarist and harmony vocalist for Portland blues and R & B favorite, Kate Sullivan, and in 1980 appeared on Kate's first album, "New Shade of Blue".
In 1995, following a 12-year hiatus to help raise his two sons, he helped form the McMinnville band Sunstone, with which he played guitar, sang, and wrote for the band's 1997 EP " Get it! This is it!" After the breakup of Sunstone in November of 1997, Richard formed the band Blindside with drummer Gary Carpenter & bassist Dan Seymour. In October of 1998, he added a keyboard to the lineup forming the basic working unit that became the Richard Day-Reynolds Band.
In 2000, the Cascade Blues Association nominated Richard's band for "Best New Act," and in 2001 & 2002 gave him nominations for "Best Contemporary Blues Act."
The Richard Day-Reynolds Band plays regularly at many of the best Portland area blues clubs - the Candlelight, Hopper's, Cascade Bar & Grill (Vancouver, WA), Trail's End, Tillicum - as well as festival crowds at the Portland Waterfront Blues Festival, Blues by the Sea, Silver City (N.M.) Blues Fest and Sunbanks Rhythm & Blues Festival, to name a few. Selections from his CD's are played frequently on Portland-area blues radio as well as on stations as far afield as South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, New Mexico and Europe. He has shared the stage with such nationally known blues stars as Sam Lay, Sonny Rhodes, Tabby Thomas, Maurice John Vaughn, Raphael Neal and Eddie Kirkland, as well as Northwest stars such as Robbie Laws, Garry Meziere, Ellen Whyte and Stu Kinzel & Lynn Ann Hyde.
"Live @ the Deluxe" was Richard's first "solo" recording effort. In 2002, The Richard Day-Reynolds Band released the album "It's Not Easy." As of late 2002, he is writing material for a new album to be released mid-2003.
Richard and Lori, his wife of 23 years, live in McMinnville, Oregon. Their two brilliant and sensitive adult sons live in Portland, Oregon, and actually stay in touch.
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