Rick Wagner
Bassist Rick Wagner was raised in a small town in the coal mining region of northeast Pennsylvania. He was recommended by singer/songwriter Emily Duff, on whose first album Rick appears. Rick started playing bass professionally at the age of 16, in “barns, bars, and brothels” (his words :-) throughout northeastern PA. Rick moved to New York City in 1981 and has played with, among others, The dB's, The Silos, Hearts & Minds, the Paul Collins Band, Ruby On The Vine, the Emily Duff Band , and Alan Paul's Big In China. A very intuitive and musical bassist, Rick also sings backup, a key ingredient in the Storytown sound.
That’s how Storytown’s bassist is described in our augmented reality app (of all places). Here’s an excerpt of Rick from that app, “playing” on the Prince Street station platform and, right before your very eyes, switching from playing lefty to his more typical right-handed self (!):
I love the bass. I remember standing with my mother, in front of my parents’ Fisher console stereo, sharing in the pleasures of the bass part in some long-forgotten song. So the role of bass in Storytown’s music is especially important to me, and we are lucky to have Rick Wagner holding up this part of the Storytown sound. Take a minute to enjoy his funky playing on ‘Caramel and Fleur de Sel”, from Storytown’s debut album Welcome to Storytown:
Rick was born in Exeter, PA, a small town “right smack dab in the middle between the glowing metropoli of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre”. He has one sister and one brother. He listened to AM pop radio as he was growing up and cites the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Lovin’ Spoonful as early bands that he loved. His first live show was Todd Rundgren at the University of Scranton. I would have loved to have been there.
Rick’s first instrument was piano (he actually plays keyboards on the dB’s album Like This), but, following the classic script, he switched to bass at some point because he “knew you had to be a guitar player to get girls and bass seemed like the easiest path”.
Sidebar for all us bass aficionados: Rick most often plays a 1976 Fender Precision bass that is the bass he’s had the longest and that, in Rick’s words, “gets the most love”. It certainly sounds great in our band. Rick’s first bass was a 60’s Gibson EB-0, which he paid $90 for used and wishes he still had. (Coincidentally I had an EB-0 as well that I bought used and years ago gave to a friend. And Stories from Storytown alum and Alice Cooper Group bassist Dennis Dunaway’s famous bass, popularly known as The Frog, is a spray-painted EB-0. But I digress, as is my habit.)
Rick has an alter ego and solo project, Luther Black and the Cold Hard Facts, described by one reviewer as “outlaw rock and roll”. Rick (“Luther”) writes, produces, records, sings and plays guitar and bass. Other folks fill in on a variety of instruments. Their eponymous debut album has gotten some great reviews as well as inclusion on a number of Americana-related playlists. Here’s what Rick says about how this project came about:
I've been writing and recording music forever. I was always content to be "just the bass player" and I still am. But I took a look at a batch of songs I'd written over a period of time from about 2015-19 and thought it would make sense to put them on an album. I felt insecure about bringing them to any of the multitude of bands I was playing in at that time so I decided to sing them myself and produce the recordings in my home studio. One thing led to another and I eventually cast a wide net to get a nice bunch of friends to contribute tracks, fine musicians like Matt Wissler, Lance Doss, Jonathan Kampner, Van Romaine, Rebecca Weiner Tompkins and a few others.
In particular check out this slow, slide guitar-laden rocker from their album:
Great name, great graphics, great sound. Luther Black has a new double single coming out May 21. Get it.
I asked Rick what he’s currently listening to that he particularly likes:
Chris Stapleton's Starting Over is probably my favorite album of the past year. I've been listening to older stuff like Merle Haggard, Guy Clark, Wille Nelson and of course Dylan. His singing just blows me away every time I hear him. Rough And Rowdy Ways and Oh Mercy! are currently getting the most plays over here. I did a cover of "Most of the Time" (from Oh Mercy!) that's coming out as the b-side to the new Luther Black single.
Well, I’ll finish up with a big thanks to Rick for holding down Storytown’s bottom end so soulfully and share a few photos of Rick in his Storytown role:
Please send me your thoughts about anything, either in the comments on this page or by emailing me directly at guy@storytownband.com. And go ahead and share this post with a friend who might enjoy it. Do it!
Until next week….