Randy Lee Riviere "Farmhand Blues" Review.

Artist: Randy Lee Riviere

Album: Farmhand Blues

Released: 2025

Artist Website: https://www.randyleeriviere.com/

Randy Lee Riviere is a prolific songwriter rooted deeply in all things American music. Clever lyrics, a miles above average stall of musicians at his fingertips, coupled with Tom Hambridge producing is sure to produce impressive results. Farmhand Blues is his 8th release, including 15 tracks and clocking in at a little over an hour. 

Big On A Bender is a track that jumps out of the speakers as the obvious choice for a single. A gritty vocal and fuzzy guitar conjure images of early ZZ Top and not so smooth room temperature whiskey. The first thing that grabs this writer's ear is how loose the whole thing is, which is meant as a compliment. It has a very Stones rock and roll approach that is all too rare these days.

The title track, Farmhand Blues has a Georgia Satellites honky tonk influence that never gets old, when done by great players like this. It is pocketed and greasy at every turn. At only 2:33 it is proof that Randy is a disciple of The Beatles approach to songwriting. Keep it simple, get the point across and wrap it up. This little gem has the kind of dirt that water doesn't wash off, which is forever welcomed into the ears of folks who know what this sort of music is supposed to feel like. 

You Ain't No Loving Woman is a standout cut. The Chris Issac like tremolo guitar sets the scene for a lyrically compelling tune with a simple vocal approach that is downright haunting. It is one of the more understated tracks on the album, providing a wonderful balance that shows the depth of composition that Randy Lee Riviere possesses. 

The 70's rock and roll bands are an obvious influence on this album, however there is quite a bit of subtle complexity in his writing which suggests a wide variety of influences, including but not limited to classic rock and roll, blues, folk and everything in between. To sum it up, American music. Randy and the band are executing it at the highest level with heartfelt passion for the music. It has the attitude of Neil Young, presented in a honky tonk band that is clearly a part of the southeastern American music scene. Fans of the harder side of Americana will enjoy the entirety of this fine release. 

Check out the interview with Randy as well.....

TELL US THE BRIEF HISTORY OF YOUR BAND OR MUSICAL CAREER.  

• I started playing the guitar at around 10 years old.  Then the trumpet, got braces, then drums.  But always the guitar.  I took lessons from a really talented guy in middle school and on into early high school and started playing lead guitar in bands later in high school.  Everything you know.  Outdoor parties, Dances, Garages.  Those were the days.  My instruments of choice back then were a Melody Maker, Les Paul Deluxe, Firebird … and a Fender Quadreverb amp.  A Marshall short stack later.  This was the 70’s and rock music was LOUD.  After the Army, it was a lot of day jobs: the Army, driving a big rig coast to coast, working for a government drill crew … college.  More college.  I Played music and wrote shitty songs all the way.  But all of these experiences and more really were a training ground for writing songs which got better and better I think.  

  I Started making records in I think 2001 … Country/Folk/Rock mainly out in the LA area.  Started falling in with some cool musicians.  Then a guy took me to Nashville saying: “you’ll never ‘make it' in rock, we need to get you out East to start playing ‘Americana’, whatever that is.  So I did a few albums with Kevin McKendree, one with Chad Cromwell, and they were pretty cool I think.  I was blessed to play with the coolest musicians in the land! 

  Blues started sticking to me on the second album I did with McKendree - “Blues Sky”.  Someone told me “I wasn’t a blues guy”, so there you go.  Blues Sky is a solid album I think.  Then I started working with Tom Hambridge, including co-writing, which was really new to me.  Tom is a very clever song writer.  I’d write the lions share of the tune and Tom would come in with these amazing lines.  I was like: “what”? Things like “ever need a piss jar hand-cuffed in the back seat of a cop car”.  “Looking for a motel 6, might be a 12, maybe a 24”.  Lol.  Tom and I are just a great fit.  We’re about the same age, had the same influences growing up.  He drove right into the music machine straight away early on.  I punched the time card, pounded the pavement and had my hands in the dirt for quite some time.  Music was always there. But more out beyond the outer markers than the road Tom ran.  But I eventually made it to the tarmac and was finally in the air … making records with great people.  Tom and I have done ‘Concrete Blues and now ‘Farmhand Blues’, and man what a blast those records were to make.  They’re cool albums I think.  Now we’re back on the tarmac cranking up the engines for another one.  Someone gave me the moniker: “Americana-driven Blues Rock”. I think that’s the description of my music that has made more sense to me than anything else … although the more profane labels are fun, lol.

  WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE MUSICAL AND NON-MUSICAL EXPERIENCES?

  Of course I love writing songs.  The process helps me figure out what I’m looking at, what I think is good and bad.  What I think is right, or wrong.  What’s happening to our country.  What has happened.  What probably will happen … who benefits, who gets screwed.  What’s happening to America politically. I write a lot about the human condition.  I’m a wildlife biologist who cares intimately about the fate of habitats and the wildlife that depend on them.  I also love American history.  So these thoughts can show up in my song writing, and the process helps me figure out how I really feel about them.  

  Out of blue right now there are two experiences playing music that stand out a bit.  We were playing at a nice venue (for a change) in Helena Montana.  We were doing this song “What I Want” off of one of my Mad Buffalo albums.  When we finished there was this lady in the front row who was raising her hand … like she was wanting to ask a question in her Algebra class.  So, what the hell, I ‘called’ on her lol.  And she just said “I really like that song”!  “Well, thank you very much Ma’am!”  

  Also, we were playing at a cool little venue in Prescott, Arizonia.  I say it was cool because the night before we did this gig over in Jerome … an old mining town built right into the side of this steep rock face that stood hundreds of feet out of its deep talus alluvium footing.  People were hanging on to that cliff like starfish!  I mean it was straight down to a sure death if you slipped off that thing.  Unbelievable.  Anyway, all I can say is that gig was a surreal ‘Deliverance’ experience and we were stoked to get the hell out of there.  So … we’re playing at this cool little Prescott venue the next night and at the end of this tune this guy got up and started to walk out.  But when we started to get into my tune “Dependence Day” this guy stopped, turned around and sat back down.  So cool.  The sort of thing that just keeps you going, you know.  

  A few tunes later we were doing “Old Kentucky” and a stunning girl, probably in her twenties, got up and walked up to us and put a 20 in the tip jar.  I mean the jar was dead on in the middle of our little footprint, right in front of me.  I completely forgot the words of the song, mid-stream … thankfully the guys picked me up.  Other folks were reaching into their pockets.  Thanks nice lady!  Now we could get a couple beers after the show.

  WHAT ALBUM HAS HAD THE GREATEST IMPACT ON YOUR LIFE AS A MUSICIAN?  

  Oh man.  There’s many, many albums.  For a long time just about all I would listen to was The Beatles.  Pick one of their albums?  Sure.  I just can’t.  I love them all.  Meet the Beatles, Help, Revolver, Sgt Peppers, the White Album, Abbey Road … sorry.

  I had a similar experience with Neil Young.  It was later than his real hay day, some would say.  After I got some of that Southern Rock (Lynyrd Skynyrd) 60’s into the early 70’s rock (the Kinks, Cream, CSNY, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath).  ZZ Top, wow.  Tres Hombres.  What a gut punch.  Changed my life.  So I didn’t really discover Neil until around the middle 70’s.  Mainly I was drawn back to “Southern Man”, “Ohio” “Cowgirl in the Sand”, “Down by the River” .. then “Cortez the Killer”.  But it was Harvest that started morphing me into a songwriter. “Old Man”.  “Alabama”.  “Man Needs a Maid” (sorry ladies.  I didn’t write it I swear!) “Words”.  Then I started picking up an acoustic guitar.  

  So … ok. I’ll try to do a top three set:

  Neil Young, Harvest

  ZZ Top, Tres Hombres

  Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pronounced Lynyrd Skynyrd

  How’s that?  I need to move on quickly.

  IS THERE A PARTICULAR SONG THAT HAS RESONATED WITH YOU FOR A LONG TIME?

  Here we go again.

  Alright three too quickly …

  ZZ Top: “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers”.  

  Neil Young: “Southern Man”.

  Lynyrd Skynyrd: “Simple Man”.

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  WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE ACCOMPLISHMENT AS A MUSICIAN?

  The Farmhand Blues Record.  Breaking out the old ‘Big Muff’ again on the record … Black Sabbath meets Mother Lee, LOL.

  WHATS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE ANOTHER MUSICIAN EVER GAVE YOU?

  “Avoid using pick up bands at all costs”.

  “Rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse some more”

  WHAT’S NEW IN THE RECORDING OF YOUR MUSIC? 

  A recent moniker someone tagged me with: 

  “Americana-driven Blues Rock”.  I like it.  

  Being in the vanguard is a way of life for me.  The worst things someone can say to me are ‘stay in line’ or ‘you crossed the line’.  ‘You’re not a blues guy’.    It’s like sure, I’ll stay right here and sand bag myself in someone else’s world, someone else’s description of what something is.  Become “comfortably numb”.   Taking all the snobbery and condescending BS that are used like weapons to hold you down.  I prefer to move forward … damn the torpedo’s.  Often when someone tells me ‘no’, I hear ‘yes’.Tom Hambridge and I are going back in the studio in April.  We’ll stretch the envelope.  Again.  Bust some more walls down.

  I was thinking maybe we’ll call the album ‘Lord God’ with the picture of a Pileated Woodpecker on the cover.  Back in the say when someone saw the giant avian pile-driver fly by the would say: “Lord God, did you see that”?  This huge guy is a heavy hitter, the Babe Ruth of the bird world.  So, perhaps we could concoct a tune or two, that when folks walk in a bar or something where they are playing it, they would say ‘Lord God’ do you hear that?  Or maybe just another tune with blues in the title, I’ve done 3 now.  So maybe … Wide River blues, Headwaters Blues, Up Country Blues … just like everyone else.

  HOW HAD YOUR MUSIC CHANGED OVER THE YEARS?

  Sure, I’m doing a little more blues these days, but I think the bones of what I do haven’t changed too much.  I don’t listen to the radio hardly at all, so I draw much of my music from my formative years … the late 60’s and 70’s - arguably the best era in music, ever.  Arguably for sure.  Certainly my music has moved along with the experiences I’ve had, current events: some profound.  You’d catch these things in the lyrics mainly.

  WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO WRITE THE MUSIC YOU WRITE?

  What’s happening with the folks.  What’s happening in the world.  What’s happening to our landscape these days and what has happened in the past.  I love American History.  You’ll see lots of that weaved into some songs.  I think losing site of our history, warts and all, is critical.  Some of this is getting lost these days.

  WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO PLAY THE INSTRUMENT YOU PLAY?

  My brother played the guitar, and I loved the way it sounded.  He taught me some basic stuff.  I think every song I liked had guitar in it.  Now, the instrument has to ‘have some songs in it’.  Picking up the guitar and banging out a couple chords is usually the beginning of the songs I write.  The instrument, it’s tone, its vibe has to inspire me.  

  HOW DOES YOUR LATEST ALBUM DIFFER FROM ANY OF YOUR OTHERS IN THE PAST?

  It’s Blues Rock with no doubt, but the record is really diverse, with lots of different flavors.  

  
  

  HOW ARE YOU CONTINUING TO GROW MUSICALLY?

• I’m sort of going ‘back to the future’.  I haven’t played all that much guitar on two of the past three records.  I was told early on by a producer that ‘you’ll never compete with these session musicians’, which is certainly true in Nashville.  But, now when that’s been said I’m hearing a producer wanting to move through the project as quickly as possible and if I’m playing, it’s going to slow the effort down too much.  Yeah, but also at the risk of not getting it right, which almost always happens a few times, no matter how good the players are.  So, on Farmhand Blues, I played more guitar and that’s going to keep happening.  Obviously this is going to get my playing ‘back in the saddle’.

  
  

  TELL ME WHAT YOUR FIRST MUSIC TEACHER WAS LIKE.  WHAT LESSONS DID YOU LEARN FROM THEM THAT YOU STILL USE TODAY?

  Mr Crabtree.  Band teacher from 5^th grade through high school for goodness sake (I’m from a small town).  It was the 5^th grade.  I was playing the trumpet then.  His pet Mandy O. was in first chair, of course, I was in second.  The weekly song to play for the sacred first chair crown: “Polly Wally Doodle”.  Man I destroyed it.  Perfect. Crabass kept me in the second slot because he said “I wasn’t tapping my foot”, which I was but the old blind coot couldn’t see it.  I was in time man.  Lesson: Keep your cool.  Don’t sweat the ridiculously unfair practices of a dirty old man protecting his harem!  In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff.

  HOW WOULD YOUR PREVIOUS BAND MATES DESCRIBE YOU AND YOUR WORK ETHIC?

  Totally hard-assed pile driver who’s picture must be in the dictionary under ‘rehearse’.

  IF YOU COULD PLAY ANYWHERE OR WITH ANYONE IN THE WORLD, WHERE OR WITH WHO WOULD IT BE?

  Tom Hambridge.  Tom is a killer Drummer, love his singing voice.  Drums are like everything with this music.  Robert Kearns on Bass.  Mike Rojas on Keys and Michael Ward on guitar.  But we lost Michael a few years ago.  RIP brother.  We’d be playing in some dusty dive bar somewhere … where there’s folks that love good music.  And bourbon is free.

  IF YOU COULD CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY TODAY, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

  Enter line items in balance sheets that direct more money to the actual producers of the product that drives the entire music industry: Songs. I’ll just leave it at that. 

  WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST OBSTACLES AS A MUSICIAN?

  Scratching up the cash to continue to make records.  Same or touring, but limited resources leaves me focusing on making albums.  

  WHAT DO YOU THINK THE BEST ASPECTS OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS ARE?

  Recording.  Although cost leaves much of the recording magic found in places like Nashville out of the reach of many Indie artists, this is a special experience with amazing outcomes If you can afford it.  Now, there really are wonderful portable recording systems available today for the do-it-your-selfer’s.  Which all of us are most of the way sans a label.  Write the music.  Record it the best you can, doing the tune as much justice as you can.  Repeat the cycle.  Your music is a window into your soul.  Some people will see it, some won’t.  You don’t write it for them.

  IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE ONE, LIVE PERFORMANCE OR STUDIO WORK, WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER AND WHY?

  Making music is my favorite thing in life.

  DESCRIBE YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS WHEN YOU WRITE MUSIC.

  Generally, I’ll pick up a guitar, hammer out a chord or two, and that takes me where I ultimately go.  Lyrics fall into place around the music.  Almost always. Guitars need to have songs in them, or they don’t hang around long.

  OTHER THAN BEING A MUSICIAN, WHAT WAS YOUR DREAM JOB GROWING UP?

  Anything that involved being outside.

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  GIVE US SOME ADVICE FOR NEW MUSICIANS JUST STARTING OUT IN THE INDUSTRY.

  Determine what is true about you.  And stick to that.  The music you play should be a product of your soul.  Particularly songwriting.  That should be for you, not someone else’s version of you.  Three chords and the truth. 

  WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF GEAR AND WHY?

  Gibson LP Deluxe.  Collings d2h.  Mini humbuckers have a tight crunch that fits what I do best.  I have lots of acoustic guitars.  The Collings is the one I dig the most right now.  Very nice balanced sound.

  HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR YOUR PERFORMANCES AND RECORDING WORK?

  Work, work, work, work.

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  WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT YOUR NEW ALBUM?

• Its diversity.  Its primarily blues rock but there’s many other flavors.  This has generally been how I operate over time.  

  
  

  ANYTHING YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?

  I’m going back into the studio again with Tom Hambridge in April.  What’s going to happen …?  Don’t ask me.  Probably something wonderful.