Mark your Calendar for January 15 at Jerry Lee’s

Fresh off a tour with fellow virtuoso Tommy Emmanuel, Thumbpickers Hall of Fame inductee Richard Smith starts out the new year with an evening at Jerry Lee’s Music Emporium. Mark your calendar for January 15, 2022 at 7pm at Jerry’s Music Den at the store in St.Marys; for Richard Smith, the man both Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed began to refer to as their “Hero”, will treat a select audience to two hours of fingerstyle guitar picking virtuosity.

Richard’s career on the guitar back in England where he was born in 1971. His dad caught his attention when playing some Chet Atkins’ tunes one day when he was five and from there on “Little Richard” was sold to fingerstyle guitar picking. It soon turned out that he was a true prodigy and just six years later, at the age of 11, Richard was invited by Chet Atkins to play with him on stage at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in front of an audience of 1,000. He played Chet’s arrangement of “Whispering,” and Chet played along with him. The audience was so enraptured with Richard that Chet asked him to play another tune. Chet sat in stunned silence while Richard played Chet’s arrangement of “Little Rock Getaway” – perfectly. Chet was too amazed to even play along!

That why by the time he reached his early twenties, both Chet Atkins and virtuoso Jerry Reed began to refer to Richard Smith as their “Hero.”

Richard’s road to the top of his music genre became rocket fueled when he moved to Nashville in 1999, where He founded the Hot Club of Nashville, a jam band with a varying lineup that included John Jorgenson, Pat Bergeson, Bryan Sutton and Stuart Duncan combining gypsy jazz and western swing.

In 2001 Smith won the National Fingerstyle Guitar Championship, followed by The National Thumbpickers Hall of Fame naming him Thumbpicker of the Year in 2008 and inducting him into the Hall of Fame in 2009. He also received the Golden Thumbpick Award by the Association of Fingerstyle Guitarists and his 2018 YouTube video of Smith performing Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” went viral on YouTube, amassing almost 12 million views as of December, 2021.

Richard will be performing at Jerry Lee’s Music Store on January 15, 2022 from 7:00 to 9:00PM. Get your tickets early by calling Jerry at (912) 576-4401 because seating is limited.

Smith performs as a solo act and a duo with his wife. His repertoire includes country, bluegrass, blues, ragtime, folk, jazz, pop, and classical music