SIR RICHARD BISHOP
Richard Bishop was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1960. He is best known for his 26-year involvement with the band Sun City Girls and as an experimental solo guitarist whose work often reflects the shadow worlds of India, the Middle East, North Africa, and other points along the Gypsy trail.
"Technically, I began playing the guitar when I was 11. My parents bought me this cheap Buck Owens–styled red, white, and blue guitar and talked me into taking lessons. That lasted about three weeks — it just didn’t work out. A few years later I thought I would give it another try and proceeded to teach myself how to play the damn thing."
Richard, along with his brother Alan, left Michigan in 1979 and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1981, the brothers joined drummer Charles Gocher and formed the long-running experimental underground group Sun City Girls, who, from 1981 to 2007, produced an extensive discography of over 50 full-length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes, and a dozen 7” records. Also in the early 1980s, Richard was a member of the group Paris 1942, which included Alan Bishop, J. Akkari (Jesse Srogoncik), and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.
Bishop’s first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey’s esteemed Revenant Records in 1998 under the name Sir Richard Bishop (the name stuck). The album showcases Bishop's own particular obsessions and roots, drawing from a variety of global sources. Improvika (2004), his second record released by Locust Music, consisted of nine extemporaneous pieces for solo acoustic guitar.
Next came Fingering the Devil (2006), recorded during an impromptu session at London’s Southern Studios on a day off during Bishop's 2005 European tour. This was followed by two more Locust releases: Elektronika Demonika (2006), an electronic sound experiment with no guitar, and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (2007),(2007), featuring three extended compositions for acoustic and electric guitar. Richard's 30-minute film God Damn Religion, a seizure-inducing montage of occult imagery, was released on DVD in 2008, also by Locust.
In 2005, Bishop began performing full-time as a solo artist across Europe and the United States. His next album, Polytheistic Fragments, was released by Drag City in 2007, including works for acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitar, plus two piano compositions. In 2009, Drag City issued The Freak of Araby, Bishop's tribute to the late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, as well as a celebration of the Middle Eastern music his grandfather often played for him as a child.
Tangier Sessions was released by Drag City in 2015. It consists of a series of improvisations recorded in Tangier, Morocco in 2014, using a 19th-century parlor guitar of mysterious origin. Bishop's latest album, Oneiric Formulary, , was released by Drag City in 2020. A new LP, Hillbilly Ragas, is set for release by Drag City on September 26, 2025. Additional SRB albums have been released by Unrock, Ideologic Organ, Southern Lord, VDSQ, and other labels.
In 2010, Bishop joined forces with guitarist Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano to form the group Rangda. Three full-length Rangda releases have been issued by Drag City, with additional LPs on Unrock and Ba Da Bing! Records.
“Sir Richard Bishop forces one to alter that hoary cliché to ‘jack of all trades, master of… damn near all’.
Renowned for his mercurial guitar-playing over 26 years with Seattle ethno-delic legends Sun City Girls, Bishop has also built a distinguished solo canon. He combines soulfulness and advanced technique with a panache that is nearly unrivaled among today’s guitarists.
Bishop strums spiritual, incantatory ragas, free-folk excursions, crystalline flamenco flourishes, ruddy Appalachian folk, Middle Eastern–tinged fantasias, and gypsy arabesques. This is eclecticism executed with respect and third-eye–dilating filigree; his compositions attain a sepia-toned wistfulness and a psychedelic complexity.”
— Dave Segal, OC Weekly
"Technically, I began playing the guitar when I was 11. My parents bought me this cheap Buck Owens–styled red, white, and blue guitar and talked me into taking lessons. That lasted about three weeks — it just didn’t work out. A few years later I thought I would give it another try and proceeded to teach myself how to play the damn thing."
Richard, along with his brother Alan, left Michigan in 1979 and settled in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1981, the brothers joined drummer Charles Gocher and formed the long-running experimental underground group Sun City Girls, who, from 1981 to 2007, produced an extensive discography of over 50 full-length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes, and a dozen 7” records. Also in the early 1980s, Richard was a member of the group Paris 1942, which included Alan Bishop, J. Akkari (Jesse Srogoncik), and former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker.
Bishop’s first solo record, Salvador Kali, was released by John Fahey’s esteemed Revenant Records in 1998 under the name Sir Richard Bishop (the name stuck). The album showcases Bishop's own particular obsessions and roots, drawing from a variety of global sources. Improvika (2004), his second record released by Locust Music, consisted of nine extemporaneous pieces for solo acoustic guitar.
Next came Fingering the Devil (2006), recorded during an impromptu session at London’s Southern Studios on a day off during Bishop's 2005 European tour. This was followed by two more Locust releases: Elektronika Demonika (2006), an electronic sound experiment with no guitar, and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (2007),(2007), featuring three extended compositions for acoustic and electric guitar. Richard's 30-minute film God Damn Religion, a seizure-inducing montage of occult imagery, was released on DVD in 2008, also by Locust.
In 2005, Bishop began performing full-time as a solo artist across Europe and the United States. His next album, Polytheistic Fragments, was released by Drag City in 2007, including works for acoustic, electric, and lap steel guitar, plus two piano compositions. In 2009, Drag City issued The Freak of Araby, Bishop's tribute to the late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid, as well as a celebration of the Middle Eastern music his grandfather often played for him as a child.
Tangier Sessions was released by Drag City in 2015. It consists of a series of improvisations recorded in Tangier, Morocco in 2014, using a 19th-century parlor guitar of mysterious origin. Bishop's latest album, Oneiric Formulary, , was released by Drag City in 2020. A new LP, Hillbilly Ragas, is set for release by Drag City on September 26, 2025. Additional SRB albums have been released by Unrock, Ideologic Organ, Southern Lord, VDSQ, and other labels.
In 2010, Bishop joined forces with guitarist Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and drummer extraordinaire Chris Corsano to form the group Rangda. Three full-length Rangda releases have been issued by Drag City, with additional LPs on Unrock and Ba Da Bing! Records.
“Sir Richard Bishop forces one to alter that hoary cliché to ‘jack of all trades, master of… damn near all’.
Renowned for his mercurial guitar-playing over 26 years with Seattle ethno-delic legends Sun City Girls, Bishop has also built a distinguished solo canon. He combines soulfulness and advanced technique with a panache that is nearly unrivaled among today’s guitarists.
Bishop strums spiritual, incantatory ragas, free-folk excursions, crystalline flamenco flourishes, ruddy Appalachian folk, Middle Eastern–tinged fantasias, and gypsy arabesques. This is eclecticism executed with respect and third-eye–dilating filigree; his compositions attain a sepia-toned wistfulness and a psychedelic complexity.”
— Dave Segal, OC Weekly