Woodyfest 2018: Rick Reiley

Never Missed a Festival (He Thinks)

Rick Reiley [Sidenote: The third per­former in our Woodyfest 2018 series is Cushing native Rick Reiley.] has never missed the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. At least, he doesn’t think so. He kicked off the after­noon pro­ceed­ings at Lou’s Rocky Road Tavern with Heartache Train, [Sidenote: Beloved Lou’s owner Lula Ann “Lou” Johnson was a long-time fes­ti­val sup­porter. She died in 2016.] his first attempt at writ­ing a coun­try tune some forty-five years ago. A long­time unof­fi­cial fes­ti­val venue, Lou’s has fea­tured fes­ti­val per­form­ers and hosted open-mic ses­sions since the festival’s incep­tion. [Sidenote: Lou’s con­tin­ues to host their weekly “Tuesday Tunes” at 7:00 P.M., fea­tur­ing a rotat­ing cast of local and tour­ing musi­cians. Since it’s at the same time as Tuesday Night Music Club, you’ll have to make a choice. Either way you’ll miss some great music.] This it their first year as an offi­cial Woodyfest stage.

This train may be filled with sor­row, but it’s gonna be bound for glory some day.

Reiley is a mem­ber of Dustbowl Brothers. He co-founded and hosts Tuesday Night Music Club in Cushing with Gene Collier at the home of D’Jeanne Duncan. The gath­er­ing is an opporunity for musi­cians and song­writ­ers to audi­tion new (or old) mate­r­ial before their peers. We don’t talk pol­i­tics. We don’t come to do any­thing other than enjoy each person’s con­tri­bu­tion to the whole. It’s a potluck affair. From begin­ners to old pros any­one is wel­come. As Gene and I said from the out­set, If it gets to the point where we have to make rules and enforce them, we’ll call it a day and all go home. The gath­er­ing is in its ninth year.

Reiley has released two albums to date, Unwashed, Unplugged, Unrehearsed and Mud and Bone. This year was Reiley’s fourth time to per­form at Woodyfest.

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