Rickey Medlocke

Rickey Medlocke has been performing onstage since the age of three. His grandfather, well-known Delta blues musician Shorty Medlocke, brought the young Rickey along to perform with him every Saturday night on a local television program, "The Toby Dowdy Show". Rickey would play a miniature banjo Shorty had taught him to play. From ages 3-8 Rickey accompanied Shorty on the air and at live shows, and over the years his musical talents and natural abilities grew. By age 5 he had taught himself to play guitar and by age 8 he was playing drums in Shorty's band, at local dances and auditoriums. Over the years Rickey's love of music and performing pushed him to excel at playing other instruments--mandolin, dobro, keyboards and particularly the guitar. Rickey also has a melodic singing voice, and had taught himself how to sing and play guitar at the same time. While in high school Rickey got the acting bug and performed in school productions of shows like "West Side Story," "Oklahoma" and "Brigadoon". When he graduated from high school there was a blossoming music scene in southern Florida, and Rickey couldn't resist its pull. He formed a band with his childhood friends and called it Blackfoot in honor of their Native American heritage. He had also grown up with members of another Jacksonville band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and when Blackfoot's attempts to move to the north (New York and New Jersey) didn't seem to be successful, he called Skynyrd leader Ronnie Van Zant, who asked him to come play drums with the soon to be legendary band. Rickey wrote and sometimes sang with Skynyrd, but sitting behind a drum kit could never satisfy the energetic, charismatic performing personality of Rickey Medlocke. Eventually he decided to re-form Blackfoot, in which he sang and played lead guitar, in addition to writing or co-writing most of the band's songs. Blackfoot was a Southern band but also a hard rock band, and that helped them to stand ou. For the next several years Blackfoot toured the world incessantly. Spurred on by hit singles like "Train Train", "Highway Song" and "Fly Away", Blackfoot has sold five million records throughout their career. In the early 1990s Rickey finally decided to break up the band he'd started and thought about pursuing his other career goals, including acting. However, Lynyrd Skynyrd founder Gary Rossington phoned Rickey and invited him to rejoin the band, this time in the pivotal role of lead guitarist and as one of the primary songwriters, and this was something Rickey could never turn down. Since his rejoining the band in 1996, Lynyrd Skynyrd has been enjoying a major resurrection, and to date the band has sold almost 40 million albums worldwide. In 2000 Rickey saw the new millennium as time for some new challenges and decided that he wanted to pursue the acting career he'd always dreamed of. He began studying and reading for parts. William Shatner cast Rickey in his first role, in Groom Lake (2002). Since then he has appeared on TV, in another film that has yet to be released and in print ads and radio commercials. In his spare time between all his work, Rickey is working on a book about his music career and on a solo album.