RB Stone
RB Stone has been called a Blues Cowboy, a Country Bluesman, an Americana Artist, and a Roots Rocker, he answers yes to all” Blues Revue Magazine
RB has been down many a lonesome and rough road thru the years, logging over a million miles on the worlds highways, skyways and byways. One thing for sure, he’s always moving, creating and playing his music. His rich baritone voice and wide vocal range carries a lot of weight with any genre he chooses to sing. His guitar is the driving back beat to his songs, his lyrical wit, sense of humor, honest emotion and memorable melodies are what make the tunes stick in your mind.
“RB is an extremely talented and charismatic artist with timeless styling, who’s not afraid to push the musical limits and break the sound barriers” - Ray Kennedy, friend and Grammy-winning producer
RB's early influences were from his parents who always had a radio on listening to rock, pop, boogie and country music. From childhood to present day, music has always been in his blood. Born in the Midwest, he spent his allowance on buying 45’s at the local record store, he would play them til they wore out. His mom taught him some chords on the piano and he learned the Bill Withers’ classic, “Lean On Me.” It didn’t take too long for him to start coming up with his own tunes.
Before I was born I didn't have much room, tappin' my toes in my mama's womb.... from his song Won't Stop Rockin'
That set the stage for his future, but first, he hopped on a train in the Midwest with a 90-man rail gang, working and living in camp cars for 2 years. He got exposed immediately to the rougher side of life with a gun pulled on him the second week on the job by a fellow worker. It was a test he said, and I guess I passed it, I'm still here haha. He says, “you have to stay cool in those situations, I'd be lying if I said that was the last time it happened over the years.”
Now that's some real deal Blue Collar Blues....
After his stint swinging sledgehammers and working the rails, he took an assistant managers job at a plumbing, electric and heating store to give his back a break. He acquired a house, 2 trucks, 2 motorcycles, then 2 years later found himself miserable doing the 8 to 5. He decided to follow his heart and headed west selling all but one of the trucks, some clothes, a shotgun, a harmonica and a guitar. While traveling thru Colorado he ran into a Old Texas Cowboy who came riding out of the mountains in the middle of nowhere while RB was getting gas at a little store. He hit it off with the Texan who was working some horses at the time and invited him to come see him at the Sky Ute Indian Reservation in Ignacio, Colorado. RB went and wound up staying for a year, it's there where he taught himself to play guitar in the barn at night, while learning horses by day. After he got good enough at both, he began to pack people into the Rockies for local outfitters wrangling the horses and playing music around the campfire for them. He was paid $35 a day. He would also hitchhike across the country in those days with his saddle, he said “it was easier to get rides that way.”
Beginnings of the Blues Cowboy......
During this time in the Durango, Colorado area, he put his first band together and when not gigging he would catch the touring acts passing through, like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Charlie Daniels and everyone else in between. He wrote and recorded his first blues song in 1983, “Fairweather Friends’ which appeared many years later on his 2011 release, Lonesome Traveler’s Blues…
If the title fits, Live It....
The southwest didn’t offer much for record labels, so RB started his own; Wild Stallion Records releasing three albums with his band Highway Robbery. They achieved both regional and national acclaim through radio airplay and shows. Partnering with a Texas Indie label CBT records, he did a single and music video of his song, “Frank and Jesse”, it got the attention of the CMT network in Nashville, TN and it aired several times to a national audience. He then moved from Colorado to California for 7 years where he did national commercials as an actor and met the late Gwen Gordy from the Motown Gordys. She liked his songs, look and sound she said and backed him until her passing only a year later.
He felt elevated and anointed as a writer/artist with the support from Gwen....
That led him to Nashville where he recorded 3 albums for an independent label and was asked by Bruce Burch to produce demos for EMI Music on songs from their catalog. Kris Kristofferson's Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down was one of them. Bruce liked RB's live sound so much he gave him the studio to record his Country Rocker album in 2001, which is still one of his best projects to date. Also during that time he had developed a trust with several Military Bases in Asia having performed many shows for them. They started asking him to produce larger concerts for them and in 1996 he put over 100 shows in Japan and Korea with a variety of celebs including himself.
On his off nights from the Military shows, he would entertain flight crews in Narita, Japan. RB got to know several pilots who encouraged him to take flying lessons. Long story short, with their guidance, he wound up flying Lear Jets about 3 years later. He says “there's nothing like seeing the curvature of the earth at forty five thousand feet!”
When I die I pray for wings and wheels.... from his song Ramblin' Heart
In 2014 he wrote and recorded songs with Grammy-winning producer, Tom Hambridge, it took only nine hours to cut the tracks. A real live project with minimal overdubs, “Loosen Up” was one of his biggest received albums to date; radio and press were kind to Stone; rave reviews, hot spins on radio and a Blues Blast Award nomination for best Rock Blues Album. It was also played on Sirius XM's Outlaw Country Shows.
His follow up album in 2016 was “Some Call it Freedom” (some call it the blues) he wrote all the songs and produced the project. It remained in the RMR, charts for 24 weeks, 7 weeks @ #1, and top 10 in The Living Blues Chart. In March 2020 RB teamed up with fellow artist Ben Rice for an all Cigar Box Guitar album titled “Out of the Box”. It charted in all of the blues airplay charts and received top picls for best album of the year by several DJ's generating a lot of great press.
RB Stone songs have been covered by, The Marshall Tucker Band 1997 "He's Always There For Me" their Gospel album, Texas icon Gary P. Nunn "Cutting a Rug til the Cows Come Home" 1991/Cowboy Boots and Telecasters 2015 and multi awarded blues artist Annika Chambers "Let that Sass Out" for her 2019 album "Kiss My Sass". He’s done shows with many major acts and toured playing harmonica with Texas Legend, Billy Joe Shaver and Tejano Legend and multi Grammy winner Little Joe Y Familia.
“With a voice that came right out of central casting, Stone’s weathered baritone accompanied by his fine acoustic guitar and spirited harp playing define the archetype of what is a modern day blues cowboy.”
- Rick Bowen, No Depression
RB has released 18 albums, toured 33 countries and five continents, with about 50,000 albums sold mainly at his shows (not bad for an independent). He plays all types of festivals, house concerts, theaters, arenas, military bases, olympic villages, clubs, for presidents, private functions and motorcycle events. He's crossed the USA many times, and in recent years he's been from The San Diego Blues Fest to Rockland, Maine's Time Out Pub, The Sunbanks Blues and Roots Fest in Electric City, Washington to Camping with the Blues in Brookesville, Florida, The Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, South Dakota to Little Sturgis Bike Rally in Sturgis, Kentucky, Winchester, Virginia's Blues House Fest to Grand Forks, North Dakota's Blues on Red and many points in between all.
“He’s got a background as colorful as a mountainside on a spring day, and songs that flow as strong as runoff from the winter’s snow.”
After 18 albums and 350 plus songs in his back pocket, you’d think RB would show signs of slowing down, but at the time of this writing he's just finished albums #18 and #19 and should be hitting the road late 2019 and releasing album #18 early 2020. RB Stone is a true piece of Americana, do yourself a favor and get out to meet and hear this guy.
Jill Kettles PR 2021
