Brandon Rickman

He joined the Lonesome River Band in November 2001, after Ronnie Bowman and several other members had left. His first album with the band, Window of Time (Doobie Shea, 2002), was recorded at Doobie Shea Studios in Boones Mill, Virginia, with Rickman on guitar and lead vocals, Jeff Parker on mandolin, Shelor on banjo, Irl Hees on bass and Mike Hartgrove on fiddle, and he was also on Head On into Heartache (Mountain Home, 2005). In October 2005 he left to concentrate on songwriting, and Shannon Slaughter took his place.

He came back in February 2007, and the lineup of Rickman, Shelor, Andy Ball, Mike Anglin and Hartgrove recorded No Turning Back (2008), which in July 2009 held the top spot on the Bluegrass Unlimited album survey, and Still Learning (2010). That summer Rural Rhythm released his solo album, Young Man, Old Soul (30 June 2009), which he produced with Jimmy Metts. Most of its twelve tracks were his co-writes, with collaborators including Chris Stapleton, Jerry Salley, Tammy Rogers, Craig Market, Kevin Denney and Charley Stefl; Aaron McDaris played banjo, Randy Kohrs resonator guitar, Andy Ball mandolin, Mike Anglin bass and Jenée Fleenor fiddle, with harmony vocals from Terry Eldredge, Larry Cordle, Tammy Rogers and Jerry Salley among others, and Rickman himself playing guitar and much of the bass.

Through the 2010s he remained the band’s lead singer, guitarist and chief song-picker as its lineup changed around him: with Randy Jones on mandolin and Barry Reed on bass the band re-recorded its older songs on the three Chronology EPs (2012) and made Turn on a Dime (2014), and after Jesse Smathers took over the mandolin in June 2015 it recorded Bridging the Tradition (2016), Mayhayley’s House (Mountain Home, 2017), Outside Looking In (2019) and Singing Up There: A Tribute to the Easter Brothers (2021). Alongside the band he played mandolin in Antique Persuasion with the fiddler Jenée Fleenor and the guitarist Brennen Leigh, whose Don’t Forget Me Little Darling: Remembering the Carter Family came out on Voxhall in 2015, and in June 2018 he released “One Step, Two Step,” written by Tim Goins, as the first single from a second solo project, recorded with McDaris, Ball, Jason Barie and Mark Fain.

In June 2021 he left the Lonesome River Band; Shelor described him as the band’s “lead singer, guitarist, front man, and songwriter” and credited him with much of its song selection, and Jesse Smathers moved to guitar in his place. Early in 2022 he was one of the singers in the No Joke Jimmy’s, a Nashville side project assembled by Jamie Johnson with Ron Stewart, Terry Eldredge and others.