As promised, here is the footage of my new stereo guitar rig setup -- effects chain explained and sound samples!!!
AMPS: Fender Deluxe Reverb and Princeton Reverb single w/ Mesa Boogie 1x12" Half-Back Cabinet loaded with and EV 300 watt speaker.
EFFECTS CHAIN: Line 6 G50 Wireless, Love Pedal Line Drive, NS2 Boss, 2xTS-9 Tube Screamers, DejaVibe Fulltone, Boss Harmonizer, Ernie Ball Volume, Electro Harmonix Delay, Line 6 Mod, Line 6 DD4, 2xBoss DD-5 Digital Delay, Digitech Jam Man Loop Station.
Purchase the following 5 Kelly Richey CD's in hard copy -- plus her first 11 CD's via Digital Download for the just $99. This Kelly Richey Catalog valued at $185 for just $99!!!
Carry The Light - CD (2008)
Live At The Thirsty Ear - CD (2008)
Speechless - CD (2006)
Sending Me Angels - CD (2001)
Eyes Of A Woman - CD (1997)
Note: Each CD with be autographed by Kelly Richey!
Last week I put the finishing touches to my new stereo guitar rig! I tested the new set up at our show this past Saturday in Louisville, KY at Stevie Rays -- I love it!!! The stereo imaging allows for wonderful ambient soundscapes and the two Fender amps with two tube screamers allow for a great blues rock sound.
Today I set up my studio to accomodate my ability to rehearse my live performance and develop new sounds and to record anything I write. I have the next nine days to write and record for my next session with Duane Lundy at Shangri-la Productions. I wrote two new songs today and enjoyed the most functional setup ever!
Here is a new video with an overview of the new setup -- I will do an indepth breakdown of my guitar rig in my next video, later this week so stay tuned and spread the link!
We had a packed house last night for our show in Louisville, KY at Stevie Ray's!!! Stevie Ray's Blues Bar has been Louisville's home for the blues for almost 20 years -- there's always a great crowd and a warm reception!
For those of you who were at the show -- thank you! For those of you who were not -- I'm including photos that highlight the night!
Stevie Ray's Blues Bar
Saturday, February 18, 2012 @ 10pm
Stevie Ray's Blues Bar, 230 East Main Street, Louisville, KY
Experience The Kelly Richey Band LIVE!!!
Venue: (502) 582-9945 http://www.stevieraysbluesbar.com/
This past year I've used Statements in Hair for hair cuts and color, and had them do my make up for all photo and video shoots -- Pam Brooks and her amazingly talented team has been wonderful to work with. If you're in the market for any hair care -- contact them at either of their locations - West Chester or Sharonville. If you tell them you saw this on my blog, they will give you a 10% discount!!!
Here's a few photos:
While you're there -- be sure to check out their hair care products!!!
Honestly -- these are the best products I've ever used and they are natural!!!
Have you ever found yourself awake at night, unable to sleep, asking yourself the questions: who on earth am I? What does this life mean? What direction should I be heading…? Several years ago I began to ask myself these same questions. After 25 years of following my dream as a successful blues guitarist and singer/songwriter making a living doing what I thought I had been “called” to do, I realized that I had mistaken my talent for my “purpose”, and that my purpose was what I should be doing with my talents. I also realized I had more talents inside of me than just writing, playing and teaching music.. I was terrified by that question – “who am I…?” Eventually the crisis reached a point where I no longer seemed to know myself. I found myself living a life based on a dream that I had created when I was a teenager, and now, as an adult, I realized that I had outgrown that dream. Now what?
For years, I had hidden behind my guitar -- it had become my identity and my security blanket. What if I ACTUALLY followed my heart now--- and in doing so, had to set my guitar down? That was a terrifying prospect, but I knew that I MUST address it. Not only was the guitar my identity, it was how I made my living. A career change didn’t quite fit in to my plans! Even if finances were no issue, I wondered if people would like the “real” me. As a performer, my survival depended on people liking me, coming to see me play, buying my CD’s, and hiring me to teach them to play guitar. I felt paralyzed by my fear. At first, I used a number of tactics as a diversion to avoiding answering these pressing questions. Ultimately though, I realized that if I wasn’t myself, nothing was going to work and true happiness would always elude me. I had created quite an illusion for myself, and for years I had gotten away with it--- but now it was time to change!
In 2007, I began seeking ways to expand my career choices. I soon began the process of becoming a dream coach, helping people to identify what they most wanted to do--- helping them to put a “stake in the ground” and accomplish goals to insure success. I immediately began to see that each of us has the same fears and limiting set of doubts. I began to see that people who were passionate, convicted and had purpose, were most likely to follow through and succeed in accomplishing their dreams. In 2009, I followed my heart and began the certification process to become a True Purpose Coach. I began to ask the question, “What on earth would happen if a ‘highly sensitive, yet very rational voice’ was able to speak to my heart AND be heard… on a consistent basis?” How would it impact my life to NOT live by the willy-nilly emotions of being mad, happy, depressed, or blown by the wind? My mind began to explore new possibilities with fervor!
In pursuing my own life’s purpose, I began to bring into focus the desires of my heart. I developed tools to deals with my fears one step at a time. My dream finally started to become my reality! Throughout this process I found that if I was ever to hear the truth inside of me, I had to get past being concerned with what people might think of me. I had to develop enough self-confidence to allow myself to establish a connection with my inner voice so that I could hear the REAL truth. When we “listen” to that voice inside and allow our heart and our mind to resonate, a sense of alignment and harmony is possible. We begin to realize our own unique gifts and talents, those qualities we often take for granted. Often, we underestimate the power they hold, and how life changing following our dreams can be.
If we do not listen to our own voice inside, we run the risk of losing our connection to ourselves. That is easier said than done, though, as oftentimes we are so busy with work and family that we “plan” ourselves right out of our lives. We are simply “too busy” to be reflective. We beat all of life’s mystery and all of it’s magic to death. We let doubt and the fear of what people might think, run our lives. This often leads to a miserable, depressing existence. How can we possibly know what is real and what is meaningful, if we are not connected to our hearts…? What others think can be important; however, I believe it is our responsibility to honor our own voices and to love and to support others in finding their own path.
In the end, illusions do not serve us – fulfilling our life’s purpose is what we are here for -- and we have to follow our own hearts in order to find our own path, and complete our own journey. The world needs each and every one of us because we are all special and we all have unique talents to offer the universe. I would like to leave you with a quote and a song--- "Nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another." – by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Finally, here is a link to a song I wrote entitled, “Is Anybody Listening” -- it talks about listening to your heart and following your own footsteps. Is Anybody Listening
Is anybody listening - to what their heart does say
Walk away from bad dreams – and if you’ve lost your way
Listen to your feelings – it’s what you’ve come here for
Follow your own footsteps – and you will find the door
Do you lie awake at night – Wondering where you are
Do you find it hard to cry – You don’t know what you came here for
Is anybody listening – for what their heart can do
Follow your own dreams now – the ones that lead to you
Tell me are you wanting – A little more than you find
If you do not turn around – you will surely lose your mind
Do you lie awake at night – Wondering who you are
Do you find it hard to cry – You don’t know what you came here for
Is anybody listening - to what their heart does feel
IF you do not answer this – then don’t tell me what is real
I want to thank Rick Bird for the nice write-up in the Cincinnati Enquirer -- it was great exposure for the band as well as the Cincinnati Blues Society. I would also like to thank WNKU for having me on air yesterday afternoon! WNKU is an amazing station, they play great music and give a tremendous amount of support to independent artists such as myself. Finally, I want to thank the Cincinnati Blues Society for having us headline their event last night -- so many volunteers helped to put together this event that I can not begin to name them all however, a special thank you to Mary Beth Weaver -PR Coordinator, Cincy Blues Society/Fest for all of her hard work in coordinating the press -- great job!!!
For those of you who were at the show -- thank you! For those of you who were not -- I'm including photos that highlight the night!
The Kelly Richey Band - Cincinnati Winter Blues Fest - 2012:
This weekend is the Cincinnati Winter Blues Festival in Over The Rhine -- just north of downtown Cincinnati. Four locate venues on Main Street will be hosting this event. The Kelly Richey Band is scheduled to headline tonight at the Drinkery and show time is 11pm!!!
Here are so pictures of Kelly Richey -- today at WNKU's radio station!!!
Call it a midlife crisis, burnout, or just taking time to ponder the meaning of it all. Two years ago, blues-rock guitarist Kelly Richey, walked away from her career after being a fixture on the region’s music scene for almost 25 years.
“I called my band and said, ‘I quit. And I don’t know if I’ll be back,’” Richey said about the decision.
She ended up taking all of 2010 off to re-orient her life. It involved taking a rigorous life coach study program inspired by Marcia Wieder’s Dream University, and worked with Cincinnati self-help author Peter Block. What she didn’t do was make any music.
“I got to where the whole music thing was more than I could handle – doing all my own records, my own booking, marketing, keeping the band together. I was getting burned out.”
Kelly Richey is back. The last few months she has again been out playing her muscular brand of in-your-face blues-rock, not missing a beat as one of the region’s premier guitar slingers. Richey headlines the two-day Winter Blues Fest, performing Friday night at the Drinkery.
This year’s Winter Blues Fest, sponsored by the Cincy Blues Society, features 25 local acts at four venues in Over-the-Rhine. The annual event has reinvented itself as a blues pub crawl in OTR after the closing of the Southgate House, where it had been held the last five years.
Richey said her year off did the trick to clear her head, put her music in perspective and begin a new career as a life coach.
“I had mistaken my talent for my purpose. I didn’t have a clue about my purpose,” she said. “Music itself wasn’t bringing me happiness.”
Looking back at the touring schedule Richey maintained, it’s not surprising she hit a wall. She had been doing some 250 gigs a year for 15 years, putting out 11 CDs over the period. She liked billing herself as “Stevie Ray Vaughan trapped in a woman’s body with Janis Joplin screaming to get out.” Indeed, Richey perhaps describes herself best on her song “Cracked and Bent” where she sings, “I ain’t cracked, just a bit twisted.”
Richey, who turns 50 this year, was born in Lexington and experienced national success in the late ’80s in one of her first bands, Stealing Horses, which signed to Arista. Not content being a side player, Richey formed her own power trio and become one of the most proficient power blues guitarists in these parts with plenty of national touring credentials as well.
Richey said her time off was needed to realize she had outgrown her “teenage version of becoming a rock star.” She said touring with seemingly no purpose had ruined her health, physically and emotionally. Now she says she’s been able to fall in love again with her music.
“I’ve been able to step back in and make my profession more authentic and more rewarding. I feel I can do it the rest of my life and do it the way I want to.”
As part of her return to the performance stage Richey is releasing two CD compilations. One is a collection of her best live tracks from 15 years of performing, including her cover of “Hey, Joe,” which has become her own searing, signature song. Significantly, the second release is her first-ever acoustic project re-recording her own songs in a solo setting. It’s an intimate, vulnerable session where Richey marvelously displays a voice growing a little raspier, wiser and confident with age.
Best of all she shows she doesn’t have to be an electric blues-rock diva to please the audience. Richey said she’s been working more acoustic material into her sets.
Richey said gone are the days of 250 gigs a year, now content to pick and choose 100 or so “meaningful” dates as she also devotes time to her life coach counseling and workshops. Music or coaching, she says she’s eager to spread her message about the importance of finding purpose.
“I hope I can inspire people to get in touch with that voice inside that says, ‘It’s OK to think about what you want to do with your life.”
I've begun the journey of creating a new guitar rig that will allow me to fully develop my acoustic sounds, keep my current "blues rock" guitar tones and standard sounds while adding the ability to create ambient sound scapes with the electric and acoustic guitar. I'm beginning to test all the new gear I can get my hands on to see what works best and give me the greatest flexibility for great sound and portability. I hope to be able to fly with whatever version I create -- the journey begins!!!
Todays experiment starts the following effects chain -- 2 x TS-9 Tube Screamera Boss FV-599H Volume, into a T-Rex Delay (...so far all the signal chain is in mono), Boss DD-5 Digital Delay (here's I begin the stereo signal -- I start by coming out of the DD-5 stereo into the next two units stereo in and out), TC Electronics Hall Of Fame Reverb, Boss RC-300 Loop Station...to the amps -- 2 x Electro-Harmonix Caliber 22 Power Amps, one using a single Princeton Reverb single 12" speaker and the other plugged into a Mega Boogie 1 x 12" Half-Back Cabinet, loaded with an EV 300 watt speaker.
Testing New Guitar Gear for Live Ambient Guitar Rig:
I spent the day in the studio writing, creating and recording. I'm bouncing from my backup guitar rig to my current guitar rig and getting ready for new gear to arrive that will enable me to create new and exciting ambient soundscapes!!! I have a list of twenty-seven ambient songs I've written that I'm mixing, re-mixing, and constantly building sound on sound!!!
I mainly use Ableton Live to create songs -- I can record loops and create layers. As I record, I can cut and paste each set of sounds in to different clips which can be fired...ie...played and arranged in an infinate order!!! I have three expression pedals hooked up to my midi pedal and cool templates created so I just plug and play. My big challenge currently is creating this same ability with my guitar rig without having to use my computer... This is what I'm experimenting with these next few weeks!!! Stay Tuned!!!
It was at the Kalamazoo State Theatre, two years and one week ago that I played my last show before coming off the road for a much needed break. When I stepped away from the road, I quit the band and honestly did not know if I would return. Many people said, "you'll miss it -- you'll be back", but I knew that what I had experienced with constant travel, an unhealthy life, and the arduous tasks of booking, show advances, promotion, vehicle maintance, and dealing with band member changes was something I would not miss. What I longed for and missed was to be able to have the time and energy to be an artist--- music, had somehow become last on my list.
During my first year off the road, I placed most of my focused on my health and finding out who I was. In 2008, I began the journey to become a Life Coach -- it was my intention to use the experience I had gained as an independent artist who had followed her dream to help support and coach others in doing the same. As I began my training, I realized just how miserable I was, and how off-course my dream had become. I knew authenticity was at the core of all I'd ever wanted to do, but the show I had been presenting on stage had never fully reflected that. I promised myself that I would not return to the stage until I knew who I was, and until I could perform with complete authenticity.
This past Friday, I returned to the stage where I played my last show and began my new journey. The show was marked with many changes -- most importantly,the inclusion of an acoustic set with new original songs from my just released acoustic CD "Finding My Way Back Home". Changing one's life and direction is not an easy task--- it does not come with a set of rules, nor is there a step-by-step plan to be followed. It can only be accessed by listening to our intuition, facing our fears, and developing the missing components that get in our way of true success. What is true success? For me, it's learning to live within each moment and being able to support myself in a way that truely supports who I am. There are no self-help books or step-by-step plans for success. True success is developing and practing a daily set of principles. I had mistaken my talent for my purpose, and through the journey of becoming a True Purpose Coach, I was able to redirect my efforts, regain my passion, and refocus my dream. I began to live for the first time.
The Kalamazoo State Theatre was packed! I want to thank those of you who were able to be at this show. It was a very powerful night for me--- as I felt I took the stage and performed with true authenticity. The energy and support from the crowd was incredible! ...thank you! I also want to thank my band and my support team. I want to express my appreciation for Jimmy Valdez for returning on bass-- his support and dedication over the last seven years is deeply, deeply appreciated. I want to thank and welcome Dave Kemp, my drummer-- his willingness to learn to meet my musical demands is refreshing. Both of these guys are the very best band mates I could hope for. They work as hard off stage as they do on stage to help make this all happen!!! Also, I want to thank Sonya Ziegler for photos, and both Sonya and Julie Hermes for helping with the never-ending list of to-do's -- from the office to merchandising. I could not possibly do this job without the commitment of those around me --- thank you for believing in me and in my dream.
Over-the-Rhine is getting the winter blues. And that’s a good thing.
The Winter Blues Fest will try to turn OTR into a mini-Beale Street Friday and Saturday as the annual event moves from Newport to four venues on Main and Walnut Streets in Over-the-Rhine.
The event will be held at three clubs in Over-the-Rhine: The Drinkery, Japp’s Annex and Below Zero. A fourth Main Street stage at the former Harry’s Pizza, currently vacant, is being reopened for the occasion as an all-ages venue that will feature the Blues in the Schools Band and other acts.
The move comes after the closing Jan. 1 of Newport’s Southgate House, brought about by a protracted family legal battle. (The owner says he plans to reopen it with a different name, Thompson House.)
The Winter Blues Fest became the first major casualty of the Southgate going dark sending the fest’s sponsor, the Cincy Blues Society, scrambling late last year to find another location for its seven-year-old event that has become a must-see for local blues fans as an annual sampler of local blues talent.
With more than a dozen acts each night, the festival was a perfect fit at the Southgate House, showing why the venue was so valuable for multi-band showcases with three stages under its one rustic roof.
“At first, I was very frustrated. We had sold out the Southgate three years in a row for the Winter Blues Fest,” said James Czar, president of the Cincy Blues Society.
“But now I’m glad we got the kick in the pants. It has forced us to go somewhere where we can keep growing this event. We have a lot more capacity with four venues. OTR clubs have been very welcoming.”
Over two nights 30 acts will be featured on the four stages. Among the highlights:
Friday’s headliner is blues-rock guitar slinger Kelly Richey. The new year marked a return to performing for the Cincinnati favorite, who took a year off from touring.
Saturday’s headliner features guitarist/harp player RB Stone out of Nashville, the only act not from the region.
There are plenty of traditional jump blues and party blues-rock groups, such as Leroy Ellington, G Miles, Ricky Nye, Inc., and Blues Merchants, mixed in with some quieter, but edgy, acoustic blues acts, like 46 Long, Bad Men on a Mission, John Rendell and Brian Keith Wallen.
On the reunion front, bassist Ron Esposito hooks up with his old band mate, guitarist/vocalist Greg Schaber. The two formed the core of the popular power trio, the High Street Rhythm Rockers, in the ’90s. One artist reinventing himself for the occasion is Wade Baker, better known around town for his jazz trumpet work. Baker picks up the electric bass for his blues trio that features young harmonica player Carson Diersing.
The event is the major annual fundraiser for the nonprofit Cincy Blues Society’s Blues in the Schools Program (BITS). The Harry’s Pizza venue will feature students involved in the BITS band.
The venue is all-ages and does not require a wristband ticket.
Blues Fest schedule
The 2012 Winter Blues Fest, Friday and Saturday, features 30 local bands, duos and acoustic acts performing at four locations in Over-the-Rhine.
Tickets each night: $15, advance; $25 at the door. www.cincyblues.org; 800-838-3006.
Friday night at The Drinkery stage is dubbed “Ladies Night,” featuring bands all fronted by women.
The former Harry’s Pizza location, 1207 Main St., is a free, all-ages venue that kicks off each night with performances by the Blues in the Schools Band.
