Originally from Annapolis, MD, Rik Ferrell, has effectively established for himself a summertime music career with a season that runs all year long.
“I bounce back and forth between the Mid-Atlantic and South Florida…that’s where my people are,” Rik says. “…It’s so great to be outdoors in the Mid-Atlantic in the summertime…I’m totally fine in Florida any time of year as well.” He sums up how this dual summer citizenship relates to gigging this way: “There’s always an open tiki bar, which is great.”
Rik credits his 89-year-old Cuban father for his ability to stand the heat, as well as for giving him a love of Latin jazz. He also places himself firmly in the troubadour tradition of Roger Miller, Tom T. Hall and others. Add in rock elements from the likes of the Allman Brothers and The Band, and you get an idea of what Rik sounds like.
He cut his professional chops at the tender age of 14, playing bass in Annapolis blues rock bands. “I said to my friend, ‘I would pay to do this, but they’re paying ME to do this?” Rik got good enough to become a regular session player at a local studio. “I literally was playing everything. Any kind of style, it didn’t matter to me…It was a really good education,” he recalls.
Rik’s latest album, Places to Do, Things to Be, grew out of his traumatic experience of Hurricane Ian, which devastated large swathes of the Ft Myers, FL area where he spends much of his South Florida time. To deal with the aftermath, he says, “Hearing all the bad news…I said, ‘I need something else to focus on.’ So I grabbed a guitar, sat on our lanai and just started writing. And I was writing and writing and writing.” Dealing with his negative emotions therapeutically through music ended up shading the sunny “trop rock and coastal country” of the record with a darkness that lends it a depth beyond the fun “beach music for drunk girls to dance to” vibe that Rik generally embraces.