AT THE VIP LOUNGE AT THE PALM SPRINGS CULTURAL CENTER
By Eleni P. Austin
It’s no exaggeration to state Rick Shelley is one of the best singer-songwriters on the Desert music scene. It’s also a fact that he and I have been great friends for nearly 40 years. We met when I was a svelte, suntanned Bitch Goddess in-training and he was a long-haired aspiring Rock star from the Northwest. We had pretty much nothing in common, certainly not musically. But we discovered we both had an affinity for David Letterman and The Monkees. Somehow, a friendship blossomed and it has been a ride-or-die relationship that has sustained us through good times and bad.
On Sunday, December 29th, Rick will be playing a show under the aegis of The Dusty Strings Collective at The Palm Springs Cultural Center. This time out, Rick has joined forces with fiddle player Bobby Furgo and multi-instrumentalist Mikael Jacobson, who will be playing upright bass.
Rick moved to California as a teenager with one goal in mind, to become a successful musician. The Walla Walla Washington native, along with his hometown pals, guitarist James Danielson and drummer Eric Turner had their sights set on Hollywood but wound up a little further East in Palm Springs.
Their disparate musical influences included Motley Crue, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, Iron Maiden, Miles Davis and Van Halen. After a couple years, they found a bassist, future Desert Rock legend Nick Oliveri. He brought a Punk sensibility to the newly minted four-piece, with inspirations that hewed closer to The Ramones, The Damned and Iggy & The Stooges. As RagTag, they began gigging around the desert. Their sound landed somewhere between the feral intensity of Guns N’ Roses and serpentine Glam/Punk energy of Jane’s Addiction. Rick proved to be an agile and charismatic vocalist, and they quickly built a solid local following. In 1989, they acquired a manager and made the leap to Hollywood. Despite the punishing Pay-To-Play policies that dominated the L.A. club scene, they managed to play venerable venues like The Whisky, The Country Club, Gazzari’s, The Roxy and The Troubadour. Ultimately, their manager couldn’t deliver everything she promised, and the band imploded.
While Nick went on to form Kyuss with his old friend, Josh Homme, Rick, James and Eric returned to the desert, married and started families. But the pull to make music was too great. Within a couple of years, they recruited Nick’s equally talented brother, Dean, to handle bass duties, Rick shifted to rhythm guitar, while he and James traded lead vocals.
As Woodshed, they expanded their musical horizons, drawing on their shared affinity for Jazz, The Grateful Dead, Townes Van Zandt, and a surfeit of Blues. The result was A tight, Blues-Rock band that struck a balance between lean economy and epic improvisation. Between 1994 and 2004 they released two studio albums, Fires Of Spring, Let It Roll and a live set, Goodnight Irene. Although they recorded an album’s worth of songs at Rancho de La Luna, that effort has never been officially released.
Despite relentless touring through California, and opening for well-known acts like Gene Loves Jezebel, L.A. Guns, Kip Winger, The Untouchables and Tommy Tutone, Woodshed had plateaued. Although they never formally broke up, the band went on hiatus in 2004. Rick put music on the backburner and concentrated on family. When his marriage ended a few years later, he focused on raising his three kids. As they became more independent, his need to create music was reignited. With the help of Mystic Avalanche Entertainment, he booked his first solo show at the tail-end of 2014.
After nearly a decade of inactivity, new music seemed to just flow. Pretty quickly, he’d amassed an arsenal of killer songs. Having experienced some setbacks and challenges over the years, his music had evolved. Memorable melodies were matched by inventive arrangements and nuanced narratives.
Connecting with Chris Unck, owner of High Lonesome Recording Studio in Joshua Tree, the pair sifted through about 40 songs, separating six from the pack for Rick’s 2015 debut EP, 1909 Miles. Rave reviews followed and he was nominated in three categories at the 2016 Coachella Valley Music Awards. Soon enough, he was sharing stages with artists like Cisco & Dewey, Travis Meadows and Jann Browne.
Two years later, he and Chris emerged from High Lonesome with Rick’s first long-player, Hope Wrapped In Razor Wire. Again, critical acclaim was unanimous and Rick’s fan-base increased exponentially. Since then, he has opened for celebrated British Folk-Rocker Jasmine Rodgers, Country sensation Genthen Jenkins and Roadhouse Rockers The Cruzados. He has also played every place from the Long Beach Buskerfest, the Beatnik Lounge in Joshua Tree, The Alibi in Palm Springs, Pappy & Harriet’s (when that still meant something), as well as The Mint and The Echo in Los Angeles and Stagecoach.
Rick currently has a cache of road-tested songs that will hopefully be recorded in 2025. He will undoubtedly play those, as well as a few old favorites at The Dusty Strings show.
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The Dusty Strings Collective Acoustic Americana Music Featuring Rick Shelley
Sunday, December 29th, 2024. 5:30-7:30pm.
VIP Lounge At The Palm Springs Cultural Center
2300 E. Baristo Road, Palm Springs.
