Richard Day-Reynolds

Friday, 26 June 2009 18:23

Visit the Richard Day-Reynolds Band Web Site

• CBA Music Review: Live @ The Deluxe

Muddy Awards:

• 2000 Nominated for Best New Act

The Richard Day-Reynolds Band

February, 2001 BluesNotes
Article by Rick Hall

 

  The Richard Day-Reynolds Band has made the Blues fans of this area sit up and take notice this past year and they are looking to elevate their status to new levels this coming year! Last year they added the dynamic, veteran keyboardist, and local Portland favorite, Frankie Redding, to the fold. They played a prestigious out of town Blues Festival with some stellar national Blues talent. And, they garnered a "Muddy Award" nomination from the Cascade Blues Association for "Best New Blues Act". The band evolves around the versatile and seasoned talents of Richard Day-Reynolds. I got a chance to sit down and talk with this very interesting and genuinely earnest man last month.

    The Richard Day-Reynolds Band was formerly known as Richard Day-Reynolds & Blue Light Special. Richard says that the name came a few years back when the band needed its own identity. But today, there's been some turnover and the band is now under the leadership of Richard and performs under his moniker. The current lineup consists of Richard on vocals and guitar, Frankie Redding on keys, Gary Carpenter on drums, "Kooch" Kucera on Blues harp and George Edmundston Jr on bass. Gary was with Richard from the beginning when they were known as Blindside and has evolved with him through Blue Light Special and into the current group. With Blindside, they were basically a three-piece band looking for a fourth. They went through several guitarists and finally decided on a keyboardist named Kerry Canfield, who had formerly played with British Blues/Rocker, Mick Clarke. He was part of the group as. it was known as Blue Light Special and was on their first CD project in 1998 titled, "Live @ The Deluxe".

    Richard has been involved in music almost all of his life; 40 plus years. He remembers, "I started performing recitals on piano when I was five. I also took cello when I was seven and was classically trained. I picked up guitar at 10 and bass fiddle at 12. My mom was an opera singer and pianist who gave all that up to raise her family. We grew up in Tennessee and there were five kids, of which I was the oldest.   My dad, bless his heart, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. It was my mom that was the push for all the music. Each of us had to take piano lessons, at least for a little while. I was the one that stuck with music the most." Richard still plays a little bass and wishes he could play more keyboards. He tinkers with mandolin and lap steel guitar from time to time. He even played pedal steal for a time with another band and truly loved it, but it doesn't fit into the present scheme of things.

    Richard moved to Oregon in the late 1970s. He relates, " I was living in Tennessee and had a friend in Salem who gave me a call and said, 'come help me spread the gospel of Bluegrass.' He and I had a Bluegrass band in Tennessee. He said, 'nobody out here knows what Bluegrass is!' I said o.k., sure. And, when I got here, he promptly fell in love with this lady and we never did get to do any Bluegrass. After he was bitten by the 'love bug' he wasn't worth shootin'!  In 1978, I ended up running into Kate Sullivan, who was working out of Portland. I started playing guitar, singing and doing sound with her. I was even on her first recording in 1980.

    1 was playing at the time doing a solo and a duo gig with a guy. I was playing for money infrequently, but always playing for tips! I met my wife, Lori, in Salem. We got married in 1979 and we moved to Portland in the fall of that year. I was doing the music thing with Kate, who was performing Blues, Soul and R&B. She is still around playing and does a lot of private parties and things. She is really a great, great singer; just terrific! I was with her a couple of years."

    While they were in Portland, their first son was born. Shortly after that, they moved back to Tennessee. That was in early 1982. While back there, Richard played in a couple of Country / Rock Folk groove bands. They were good bands, but there wasn't any market in the rural area, where they were located, to play for. They would have had to go to Knoxville to make any impact. And, they had by that time two kids. Their second son was born in 1983, and for Richard, it just wasn't worth playing out professionally. Richard was working private, non-profits with developmentally disabled adults and for the next dozen years, he worked a number of programs. He made his way up through management and even finished his degree when he eventually moved backed to Oregon. It was 1985 when he and his family returned to Oregon, making a home just outside of McMinnville. They had some acreage and basically raised vegetables and boys for the next six or seven years.

    Richard continues, "I didn't play, I didn't even hardly pick up my guitar for a long while. I was still working a non-profit management job. I just thought about it a lot and realized that it was no way to raise young kids being gone all the time as a musician. Being busy and sleeping half the day on the weekends or being on the road was not where I needed to be at the time. However, in the mid-'90s, I got a call from a friend of mine who wanted me to play guitar for the McMinnville version of the musical, "Godspell".  I hadn't really played in years. It meant I had to read (music) and get up to speed with my playing, but it sounded like something I would love to do, so I said, sure, I'll do it! He got me the musical charts and scores and I read the music and performed it and had a great time doing it. It ran for about a month, but. it got me interested in playing again. My boys were bigger now, almost teenagers. So, I talked to my wife and said, 'I'd like to go back to playin' again.' She'd been buying me stuff over the past years to remind me that I was a musician; a guitar case, a stand, a little practice amp and a pickup for my acoustic guitar. Lori's always been incredibly supportive and she said, 'yes, go have fun!' So, I found some folks who were just jammin' around in their homes in the area. They called themselves "Stuck In The Kitchen". It was a nice little Folk / Rock / Blues quartet with a female singer. We were playing just for fun and the music started getting really good; three-part harmonies singing everything from Los Lobos to John Haitt to old standard Blues stuff. The other guitar player in the group was an old Bottleneck, Slide Blues player. He probably had the most legitimate Blues roots of any of us. We played a few gigs and got some pretty good response, but the lead singer who was married to the drummer, decided that she didn't like the electric stuff and wanted to stick with acoustic music. We went through several changes and I finally called it quits, so there I was, without a band. I was writing some, so I decided to play solo for awhile. One day, I was sitting down having coffee with drummer, Gary Carpenter, who was in the previous band with me, and I said, 'let's start a band!' This was in early 1998. We just both really wanted to play. We found a bass player, Dan Seymour, and the three of us started going through guitar players trying to find someone for the fourth spot in the group. We called ourselves Blindside at first and then it gravitated into Richard Day-Reynolds & Blue Light Special. We finally added a keyboard player, Kerry Canfield, and recorded a live CD in the fall of 1998 titled, "Live @ The Deluxe".  We had rehearsed the tunes as a core band, but we invited Chris Estes to play harmonica and Garry Meziere (from Ellen Whyte & Reflex Blue) to play electric guitar on the recording. The six of us had really never played before as a unit; nevertheless, I'm just 'tickled pink' with how it came out!" (See the review of "Live @ The Deluxe" in this issue).

    Since then, several players have come and gone in the band, but Richard, along with original band member, Gary Carpenter, have a solid group of musicians now that are experienced on the city scene and eager to play the regular Blues circuit. For not having worked here in Portland very much prior to last January, the group is working regularly now. They had an opportunity to do a short tour early last summer to New Mexico and play the Silver City Blues Festival. Richard recalls, "An old business partner of mine had moved down there and he said, 'We've got this nice little Blues festival down here. You outta send I em some promo stuff.' So, I sent them a CD and they liked it and invited us down to perform at their Festival. I spent a bunch of time on the phone and organized some supporting gigs, which I'd never done before. I learned on the job how it's done. It was a fun Festival with 2,000 to 3,000 people and Blues acts like The Sam Lay Blues Band, Eddie Kirkland, and a super Canadian guitarist, David Gogo, who was just incredible! It was a real nice trip and we've already been contacted about playing there this year. They want us back, so I'm trying to put together a supporting tour to go with that festival visit this coming Memorial Day. I'd like us to spend two or three weeks out on the road. We played a couple of Festivals last year including the "Second Annual Blues By The Sea", in Warrenton, on the coast. We're charter members of that Festival. It's a fun one too and should grow again this year as it did last tear. We want to play the prestigious Waterfront Blues Festival this year and are trying to make that happen. Also, we'd like to get into the Troutdale Festival too. We would like to do upwards of 10 festivals this summers if we can. That would be a nice step up from last year!"

    The band has been working on a new studio CD project and Richard and Garry Meziere also have been working on an acoustic CD. When they can fit it into their schedules, Garry and Richard play as an acoustic duo out and about, but both have band commitments and it's hard to do it very often. Sometimes, Garry will sit in with Richard's band if Ellen (Whyte) is out of town or if he's not scheduled to perform with Reflex Blue. Richard plans to have the new band's recording out prior to the summer and festival season.

    Richard Day-Reynolds is solidly committed to being a professional musician; it is his job now, although he does have a production company with sound & lighting equipment and can work on the production side of music. But, if he does that a lot, it only takes away from his commitment to the band and to doing what he really wants to do, play music. However, he does work small events and community events with his production company when time allows. Richard's goal is to play music at least four nights a week and feels he is at a level he's never been before professionally. Even being on the backside of his 40's, Richard still looks at playing music like he's an up and coming kid. He now has experience as a professional musician and is learning more and more about the business end of the music field.

    Growing up, Richard was a big Folk and Country Blues fan. He was in the '60 listening to a lot of Folk music, which also included some of the old Delta Blues guys such as Robert Johnson and Lightin' Hopkins. Richard says, "When Muddy Waters came out with that "Electric Mud" album, it literally changed my life. I was a big (Bob) Dylan fan when he went electric. That "Blonde On Blonde" album still blows me away. As I got older, I was listening to old Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green. That double album, "Fleetwood Mac In Chicago", was a great, great recording. Then, I discovered Delbert McClinton, Gatemouth Brown, and Etta James. Most of these folks are primarily vocalists or singers that accompany themselves. I found I just loved that Texas Blues, Gospel, Country type stuff with the great vocals! Lately, I've been listening to Mighty Mo Rodgers and Bugs Henderson. Bugs is my hero because he's such a kamikaze. I really find that my musical influences these days are some of my contemporaries. I just can't get enough of Lloyd Jones. I haven't heard Curtis Salgado's new recording, but the last one, "Wiggle Out Of This", was just terrific. Garry Meziere is another one of the great talented group of musicians that plays this town. The thing with Garry is that not only is he a monster guitar player, but he writes some wonderful songs too. I am constantly amazed to be developing a career in a town with so many talented folks. You will stay sharp or you won't work, that's for sure! This is simply a great guitar town and that is why I don't try to compete as a guitarist. Job one for me is my singing and I feature my keyboard player and my harp player and am very happy to do it.

    In closing, Richard just wanted to add a big thanks to all the folks in the CBA. The "Muddy Award" nomination was a big treat last year. The CBA has been very good to us. And, thanks to all the folks who come out every week and see us perform!