Richard Smith at SOhO!

World-renowned fingerstyle guitarist Richard Smith’s ever growing repertoire comprises a wide variety of music from classical Bach to Beatles pop. It includes Scott Joplin Rags just like Sousa marches, Chopin, Mozart and fiddle tunes. It ranges from jazz standards to Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed and to Django Reinhardt gypsy swing, not to mention his intriguing originals. He delivers both, lightning fast barn-burners and beautiful ballads, occasionally spiced with vocals. His incredible stylistic wealth is founded in a lifelong love for music.

Born in Beckenham, Kent, England in 1971, Richard started playing guitar at age 5 under the instruction of his father. Concentrating initially on the country picking of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, young Richard digested everything he heard, learning even the most complicated of these tunes with ease, and confounding everyone with his dexterity. It seemed that not only did he possess amazing physical skill, but a photographic musical memory as well. Often, a single hearing was all it took to get a piece under his fingers, using all ten to play bass, rhythm and melody simultaneously and creating a universe of sounds, while easily switching between thumbpicking and flatpicking like hardly anybody else.

Today, Richard is a seasoned performer who won the National Fingerstyle Championship in 2001. Smith has thousands of performances worldwide to his credit – he’s performed in five continents – North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia solo and alongside Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Clapton, Albert Lee, Dave Peacock, Martin Taylor, Brent Mason, Gary Brooker, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Joe Brown, Ralph McTell and many others.