His songs feature poetry, play, roller-coasters, and a big emotional charge. Joe Martyn Ricke is a native Texan poet, singer, songwriter, actor, writer, director, and raconteur, in the tradition of native Texas poets, singers, songwriters, actors, writers, directors and raconteurs. His father was the dangerously handsome Charles Ricke of Houston, Texas, a navy vet who could not sing a note, but tr
ied. His mother was the extravagantly-named Juanita Eudora Ricke, would-be poet and sometime palm-reader. Joe's compelling, poetic songs leave audiences thinking and feeling but rarely sleeping. A song like “Divine Electricity” leaves some folks thinking–“what the hell did I just listen to?” And a song like “Beautiful Eyes” leaves folks feeling that the world is full of some incredible ultimate delights which, unfortunately, might be just out of reach but are still worth singing/howling about. When the flow is right, his songs provoke both feelings at the same time. One fellow songwriter says that Joe’s song “Little Clarissa” is “the saddest song ever written.” Ironically, that made Joe happy. George Schricker, host of the Wild Rose Moon folk music venue and Radio Show, says: “Joe’s songs are spirited and melancholic and his lyrics and vocals communicate the story of tough times and heartache, and yet they are infectious. He came onto the Wild Rose Moon’s stage and swept the audience up into his world of yodeling and pathos as if he’d hypnotized them. You’ll be pleased to catch him!”
Joe’s musical pilgrimage started on the Texas/Mexican border, and he has wandered down a winding but interesting path ever since. He first started writing songs as a kid on his mother's Silvertone banjo, which he still plays. In the years since, he has written hundreds of songs, mostly stories registering the emotional extremes of euphoria and depression, love and loss. In Joe’s musical mythology, “the heartbreaking beautiful world” (“Little Clarissa”) is expressed through poetic lyrics and a high-lonesome performance style moving back and forth between a rich, ragged baritone and Bob Wills-influenced yodeling. Julia Meek, host of the “Meet the Music” radio show, writes: ” Joe Martyn Ricke is a storyteller in the finest sense of the word, with a poetic flair perfectly adapted to his musical roots. He’s a wicked good multi-instrumentalist, and his easy style and witty intros give way to a compelling solo delivery that will hold a small room, or an entire concert hall spellbound. As a frequent guest on my own live and recorded public radio sound stages, his performances never fail to delight.” (Julia Meek, Producer/Host 89.1 WBOI’s Meet the Music). An actor and a poet as well, Joe Martyn Ricke’s rare covers of songs by Jackson Browne, Tom Paxton, Jason Isbell, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, or King David the Psalmist are always an attempt to find something new and peculiar and even glorious in other’s words and visions we have tamed by too many hearings.
