Josh Richards

Musician · Leota, Indiana
Best known for Guitar Lead Vocals

Josh Richards is the guitarist and lead singer in Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, the band led by the fiddler Michael Cleveland. He grew up in Leota, Indiana, and has written songs for the band.

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His father, Steve, and his brother, Jason, taught him to play and sing bluegrass. Before Flamekeeper he played with the Farewell Drifters, Old Louisville Express and Blue River, which won the band contest of the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America in 2008.

With Flamekeeper he played guitar and sang lead on most of the songs on On Down the Line (Compass, 2014), recorded at Compass Sound Studio in Nashville and produced by Cleveland and Jeff White, with Nathan Livers singing tenor and playing mandolin, Glenn Gibson on banjo and Dobro and Tyler Griffith on bass; some of his songs are on that album. He was still with the band for Lovin’ of the Game (Compass, 2023), singing lead on Dick Staber’s “Now She’s Gone” and the title song, and on “One Horse Town” with Charlie Starr; the album was nominated for a Grammy. He also plays on Cleveland’s 2026 release Big Daddy Rabbit, with Livers, Cody Looper on banjo and Chris Douglas on bass.

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