Rick Deitrick

California's Rick Deitrick is a guitarist and composer whose music, composed in standard tuning, is deliberately placed outside conventional genres. He seeks inspiration in nature and in particular, the rivers scattered throughout the Western U.S. -- he often composes seated next to one. Gentle Wilderness, his 1978 debut album, was privately pressed and sold at gigs. Deitrick continued recording at home for four more decades. In 2016, his "Messy Christa" appeared on Tompkins Square's Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 8: The Private Press. The label re-released Gentle Wilderness the following year, along with the unissued River Sun River Moon from the same period. 2018 saw the release of Home Grown: Recordings 1969​-​1979, followed by 2021's Coyote Canyon, which compiled tracks from 1972 to 1975 (and one from 1999). In 2023, The Unguitarist: Complete Works, 1969​-​2022 appeared. The five-disc box set contained all four previous releases and a fifth of unissued material.