Black Sheep Vineyard Welcomes International Guitarist Richard Smith and Cellist Julie Adams

PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release

Black Sheep Vineyard Welcomes International Guitarist
Richard Smith and Cellist Julie Adams

“The greatest guy I know on the guitar … he can play anything I can play, only better!”
–Chet Atkins

ADENA, Ohio (March 5, 2014) — Black Sheep Vineyard in Adena, Ohio, will be hosting world-
renowned guitarist Richard Smith and his cellist wife, Julie Adams, on Friday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. The combination of Richard’s fretboard fireworks and Julie’s warm tone and lyrical style will have your toes tapping and your jaws dropping. Their ever growing repertoire comprises a wide variety of music from classical Bach to Beatles pop, Chopin and Mozart to fiddle tunes. It ranges from Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed to jazz standards and gypsy swing. Richard and Julie deliver both lightning fast barn-burners and beautiful ballads, occasionally spiced with gentle and witty vocals. There is a cover charge of $5.00 and seating is limited.

Their incredible playing is founded in a lifelong love for music. Born in Beckenham, Kent, England, in 1971, Richard started playing guitar at age 5 under the instruction of his father. Concentrating initially on the country picking of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, young Richard digested everything he heard, learning even the most complicated of these tunes with ease, and confounding everyone with his dexterity. It seemed that not only did he possess amazing physical skill but a photographic musical memory as well. Often, a single hearing was all it took to get a piece under his fingers, using all ten to play bass, rhythm and melody simultaneously and creating a universe of sounds while easily switching between thumbpicking and flatpicking like hardly anybody else.

Richard first met his hero, the “Godfather” of fingerstyle guitar, Chet Atkins, when he was only eleven. Richard was invited by Chet to share the stage with him at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in front of an audience of 1,000. At first, the master accompanied him, but later, he just listened in stunned silence while the child played Chet’s own arrangements – perfectly. By the time Richard reached his early twenties, both Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed began to refer to him as their “Hero”.

Richard has toured the world as a solo artist, with his brothers Rob and Sam as the Richard Smith Guitar Trio and with his swing band, The Hot Club of Nashville, featuring Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Pat Bergeson on guitar and Charlie Chadwick on bass. Fellow guitar wizard Tommy Emmanuel prefers Richard Smith as one of his favorite duet partners.

In 2001, Richard became the National Fingerstyle Guitar Champion in Winfield, Kansas. He has been a mainstay at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention in Nashville since 1991, where he has played with many world renowned artists including Nato Lima of Los Indios Tabajaras, sax legend Boots Randolph and John Jorgenson of Desert Rose Band and Elton John Band fame.

He has also performed with other great musicians such as Marcel Dadi, Tommy Tedesco, Thom Bresh, Joe Pass, Biréli Lagrène, Bryan Sutton, Les Paul, Mark O’Connor, Sam Bush, Martin Taylor, Jorge Morel, Suzy Bogguss, Muriel Anderson, Guy Van Duser, Béla Fleck, Victor Wooten, Tony McManus and Buster B. Jones and shared the bill with a host of others, most notably Steve Morse, Albert Lee, Paco Peña, Barney Kessel, David Russell and Johnny Hiland.

In 1999, Richard married the accomplished American cellist Julie Adams and settled in the Nashville area. Julie is one of the most diverse cellists on the music scene today. Raised in Dayton, Ohio, and classically trained at Interlochen Center for the Arts and the Cincinnati Conservatory, she has won many competitions and played in diverse musical settings. In 1996, Julie was selected to perform the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the Cincinnati Conservatory Orchestra. Since then, she has performed with orchestras in Chicago, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio, and Vero Beach, Florida.

Julie has also branched into folk music, playing a significant role on Glenn and Holly Yarbrough’s album “Family Portrait,” produced by well-known fingerstyle guitarist Muriel Anderson. Julie and Muriel then teamed up to release their own duet CD titled “Theme for Two Friends” and toured extensively throughout the U.S. At home, Julie is a sought-after session player and has been featured on top-ten albums as well as major film scores such as the soundtrack of the box office hit “Bridget Jones’s Diary” in 2001 and Suzy Bogguss’ contribution “Oh! May the red rose live always” to the Grammy winning CD “Beautiful Dreamer: the songs of Stephen Foster” in 2003.

Their rich artistic backgrounds led Richard and Julie to an exciting musical rendezvous. Soon they released their duet debut “Living Out a Dream,” recently followed by their second album “Seems Like Old Times.” Audiences delight in the eclectic mix of Julie’s emotional depth on cello and Richard’s flawless technique on guitar when they embark on a journey through clever arrangements, swapping melodies, countermelodies, rhythm and bass lines, and earning rave reviews around the world.

Opened in 2008 and expanded in 2013, Black Sheep Vineyard is located on US Rt. 250 at the junction of State Rt. 150, about 11 miles west of Bridgeport. The venue is located in the restored barn behind the farmhouse and is a treat in itself with an old windmill converted into a ceiling fan while metal buckets and musical instruments serve as lighting for the rooms. For more information about Black Sheep Vineyard, find them on Facebook or visit their website at blacksheepvineyard.com. For more information about Richard Smith and Julie Adams, contact Kim Butler at 304-242-1241.