Authenticity is the Secret to Richard Lynch’s
Success as a Country Music Singer/Songwriter

For folks in or around Donna, Weslaco, Raymondville, and Harlingen, Texas, it’s not too late.
 
You can still catch The Richard Lynch Band performing live in your area before February is out.
 
For the rest of us Richard Lynch fans, we’ll have to be patient until he and his talented musical compadres return to Texas – as well as Tennessee, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and other locations – later this year.
 
For now, I hope you’ll be satisfied hearing my RANCHCAST with LEM LEWIS interview with Richard, which I conducted this past week by phone between his performances in the Austin area.
 
Richard, of course, is the talented Independent Country Music Hall of Fame music artist whose chart-topping hits are known and loved for their authenticity. Richard’s music captures the heart and soul of American ranchers, farmers, and other countryfolk.

Richard is the genuine article. Raised on a farm in southwestern Ohio, the eldest of six siblings, Richard first performed on a stage when he was 8-years-old, joining his talented father, a country music entertainer, and “Mr. Grand Ole Opry,” himself, Porter Wagoner, who were doing a show together. Young Richard, who was in the audience watching his dad and Porter Wagoner, stepped to the microphone and sang “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” the song made famous by Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.
 
As Richard recalls, “I was bit ever since by the country music bug.”
 
Songwriting Inspiration

While Richard is a talented musician, capable of performing a wide variety of music, he is first and foremost an unabashed evangelist for traditional country music and preserving its format for mainstream audiences.
 
“I want to be known for keeping real traditional country music being recorded and written,” Richard tells me. “And if they hear my name, Richard Lynch, they are going to associate that with real traditional country music.”
 
Richard explains his music embraces the steel guitar. The fiddle. The three-part harmony. The songs that have a storyline that you can connect with, whether it’s a happy song or a sad song. “Country music was meant to be relatable,” he says.
 
Richard’s newest song, Love Tattoo, which he co-wrote, is a military tribute duet that he recorded with #1 Billboard charting artist, Ronnie McDowell. The touching single, officially released on January 21st in Nashville, benefits Richard’s Love Tattoo Foundation – a non-profit that he established several years back to honor and assist American veterans.
 
Richard takes his songwriting inspiration, in part, from the people he meets and the tales they tell. He also draws upon his own upbringing and the all-American values that farm life instilled in him.
 
Before his performing career began to gallop, Richard was best-known as a designer and builder of amazing barns. He picked up the craft, he tells me, while working on his own farm and making repairs to the family barn.
 
“I learned at a young age that there’s a lot of things to be maintained on the farm, so out of necessity I learned how,” Richard explains. Eventually, he says, his barn artistry was in such demand that he maintained a business with a crew of as many as ten men helping him build barns, restore them, and maintain them.
 
These days, however, Richard and his band members – typically five or six “stupendous, amazing musicians” – are too busy entertaining to do much barn work.  However, when he’s back home in Ohio, it’s still common for him to welcome as many as 450 audience members to concerts he performs in his own, hand-built barn on his working farm.
 
Bailing Hay

When Richard is on the road, he relies on his brothers and a neighbor to maintain his family’s Ohio farm. But three times a year, when the hay needs cutting, the man who was nominated as Best Male Country Artist by the Independent Country Music Association in 2014, forgoes any band bookings to return to the farm to bail that hay. Oddly, Richard observes, while the rest of the year he’s surrounded by friends and fans, “they never seem to show up during those three weeks that I’m bailing.”
 
Whether on the farm or on stage, Richard says, “We work our butts off.” That, he believes, “is a given when it comes to the farming way of life and country way of life.”
 
But Richard’s got no complaints whatsoever. “You know,” he concludes, “if you love something, it’s never work, and we love what we do.”
 
[To be the first to know about all of Richard Lynch’s upcoming tour dates and locations, visit his website at www.RichardLynchBand.com. While there, you can join his premium fan club, purchase his CDs and DVDs, and – importantly – contribute to the Love Tattoo Foundation. Even a small donation is very much appreciated.]
 
Hear my entire RANCHCAST interview with Richard Lynch here.