I remember the first time I heard of Jim Richey; knowing my weakness for the blues, my friend The Celt told me about him. “Imagine there’s this amazing blues guitarist, and he’s an older middle-aged white guy who lives out here in the sticks and works out at the Hab Center as a janitor.”
I couldn’t imagine it. He introduced me to Jim and the rest of his band, The Mojo Dogs, when I went over to sit in on some of the recording sessions at Galactic Celt Studios. Jim was pretty much ordinary looking like The Celt said–older middle-aged white guy, button up shirt, gray push-broom mustache, baseball cap. But the guy played blues guitar like a freakin’ king.
I ended up going to see him whenever I could—downtown Higginsville in a hall that usually hosted square dancing, a 1970s-furnished motel lounge in Warrensburg that I dragged Heather with me to see them, despite the fact she was getting over foot surgery.
My all time favorite time was when The Celt and I decided to go see him play at the Palace in Concordia. As we were fueling up at BreakTime, the January north wind cut through us, piercing our coats and our souls. We did eventually make it to Concordia, where we sat with our coats on the entire time, as the Palace’s aluminum and glass door closed about as well as it insulated. That was when we coined the term, ‘Jim Richey cold.’
I ended up doing a CD design for Jim and the Dogs. I didn’t care for the title, but still felt I did a decent job with it:
Goodbye, Jim.
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