For all the progressivism that's inherent in musical creation, the fact remains that the music industry is largely a patriarchal structure. There are plenty of huge female acts, but the behind-the-scenes world and the hierarchies of most genres are still mostly controlled by men. It's why so many intra-music rebellions over the years have been driven by women — from Big Mama Thornton's pioneering blues to Lilith Fair's fem counter-festival programming to the underground feminist punk wave of Olympia's riot grrrl scene.
And while women of Big Richard might not be quite as wild as riot grrrls, within the bluegrass realm they're at least hootenanny hellcats.
The Colorado quartet is somewhat of a supergroup of talented bluegrass players from the Centennial State: Bonnie Sims on mandolin, Joy Adams on cello, Emma Rose on the stand-up bass, and Eve Panning on fiddle. Sonically the group stands out from the folky bluegrass pack, both with their lush three-part vocal harmonizing and their lack of the traditionally standard acoustic guitars and banjos. But they also separate themselves from the norm simply by being an all-female band in the male-heavy genre... which is how the band formed in the first place.
"Our fiddle player Eve Panning got an offer from a private bluegrass festival here in Colorado that was looking at their lineup and realized that their lineup was all men," Sims says. "And they reached out to Eve to be like, 'We need some women on this bill. Could you put together like a women of bluegrass revue with an all-female group?' And we did a lot of prep for that show, it was a 90-minute set, but our set actually ended up getting cut short because of rain. So we kind of were looking at each other and we were like, 'Well, we learned all these songs, we should book another show.' And we booked a second show... and after that we realized how much potential this had and started moving forward as a group."
While they'd all been in the scene for a better part of a decade, the women weren't particularly close friends when they first came together. Even so, the chemistry was pretty instantaneous. Things snowballed — thanks to hard work from Sims making sure people were listening to the group and booking it for festivals — and soon Big Richard shows began selling out at venues around Colorado that they'd never played before. And the band was having a blast.
"Those first couple of rehearsals, we all laughed so hard that we peed our pants," says Adams. "And, you know, music is a hard industry, it's a lot of hard work. And sometimes it's hard to have fun doing it. And so when you come across a group of people that are just so much fun to play with and make music with, it's something you want to hang on to for dear life, because it's rare."
The ladies also shared a wry sense of humor and non-conforming attitude, which led to the band's arch name.
"Well, we talked a lot about how we have big dick energy. But you can't just call it 'The Big Dick Band.' So Big Richard goes over the right heads. And it's something that you could put up on a marquee," says Adams. "It's inappropriate while still being appropriate."
"It kind of toes the line, which is like what Big Richard does too," adds Sims. "So it fits us branding wise really well, because we have a lot of nonchalance or irreverence in our stage presence and our banter, but at the same time, we're really serious about the music that we make together."
"We're not fitting the mold and intentionally so. We're trying to break the mold."
The band's only album to date, Live from Telluride, captures the group's feisty live energy, gorgeous instrumentation, and genre-pushing tendencies. Good luck finding another bluegrass album that features murder ballads, traditional jigs, and covers of songs by Billie Eilish and Britney Spears. Sims points to another cover song from that album — and a staple of Big Richards' live set — as somewhat of a defining track for the quartet.
"We sing 'Creep' by Radiohead, and like the lyric of 'I don't belong here' — it feels like that sometimes at a bluegrass festival. So it's really fun to put music to that emotion. And like let it fully out and let people empathize with it," says Sims. "We're not fitting the mold and intentionally so. We're trying to break the mold. We're trying to say, 'Why is there a mold in the first place?' The expectations of women on stage specifically in the bluegrass/roots genre has always been tinged with conservatism and like a religious aspect. And we are kind of like breaking that down, and diffusing that for our group and being like, 'Not us!' Which is really, really fun."
But while there's a certain rebellious nature to Big Richard, the bandmates stress that what now seems to be boundary pushing within their genre, actually used to be more of the norm. Really, Big Richard is taking bluegrass forward by tapping into its past.
"I think that bluegrass and Americana has always been a music of the people," says Adams. "Back in the day, before [the genre] became kind of canonized, there were like coal mining strike songs. There were these murder ballads that were like historical accounts of murders that happened. There's tales of people who were just treated really badly. There are fiddle tunes about horrible things that happened. And I think that there's been a period of time where folks were playing all the traditional tunes and they forget that it should still be a topical genre that's about things that are going on now. So if we're writing a sex-positive bluegrass song, I think that's about as traditional as you can get. Because that's how it used to be — a reflection of the time and the places that people were in."
Big Richard just got done recording the band's first proper studio album — which will lean heavily on original tunes — and now is finally expanding their reach beyond Colorado and the bluegrass festival circuit. As long as you're not overly prudish, checking out Big Richard when they roll into town should make for a memorable night.
"We promise a once-in-a-lifetime style experience," Sims says. "You always remember your first Big Richard." ♦
Big Richard • Sun, June 4 at 8 pm • $16-$18 • 21+ • Lucky You Lounge • 1801 W. Sunset Blvd. • luckyyoulounge.com
