Richard Hurley (3)

As a solo performer accompanied by his guitar, Richard Hurley writes and sings songs inspired by events of his Western North Carolina Home. Being a product of the Folk Era of the 1960's, Richard began playing and singing songs by the Kingston Trio and other folk groups popular then. In 1981, he recorded his original song "The Ballad of Old Fort Mountain" which gained regional prominence. The track included himself on rhythm guitar, the late legendary Raymond Fairchild on banjo, Arvil Freeman on fiddle, and The Crowe Brothers on guitar and bass. In 2013, Richard dug into his files and recorded some of the songs he had written over the years. He teamed up with multi-talented musician, Josh Goforth, and legendary studio engineer and CEO of Regal Media Group, Eddie Swann, to record the album "My Mountains, My Songs", which earned the Paul Green Award from the North Carolina Society of Historians for the significance of his original Songs. Balsam Range's Grammy Award winning banjo player, Marc Pruett, played on the "Shindig on the Green" track - the informal theme song for the popular summer event. Richard has released a second CD of original songs, "Cataloochee", which also includes a video about the history of the title song. In addition to Josh, he is joined by multiple Grammy Award winners David Holt and Bobby Hicks; plus multi-instrumentalist, David Johnson; arranger, Danny Crawford; and Tim Surrett and Darren Nicholson of Balsam Range fame. Local percussionist of Nashville fame, Tony Creasman, also played on Richard's first CD as well.