Big Richard

Bursting with talent, politically charged and playfully risque, Colorado’s Big Richard makes no apologies and takes no prisoners. Once described as “smashing the patriarchy one raging fiddle tune at a time,” they burst onto the scene in 2021 with a suggestive band name and bawdy stage banter that may have drawn backlash but only whetted the appetite of their fan base.

They’ve appeared on PBS’ the Cavern Sessions, the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Delfest, Rockygrass, New Year’s Eve at the Ryman and The Kennedy Center, which called them world-class musicians “with a healthy dose of lady rage.” The Bluegrass Situation included their debut album Girl Dinner as one of the best bluegrass recordings of 2025 alongside recordings by East Nash Grass, Shawn Camp, Carter & Cleveland, Sierra Hull and others.

The genre-bending Big Richard are Bonnie Sims (mandolin) Eve Panning (fiddle), Hazel Royer (bass) and Joy Adams (cello), a Grammy and Emmy-winning artist for her contributions to soundtracks for Godless on Netflix and The Queen’s Gambit. Adams holds a doctorate from the University of Miami with a dissertation titled The History and Evolution of the Cello in American Fiddle Music.

Pet, the band’s sophomore studio album, will be released February 5, 2026. Described as a fierce, provocative, rejoinder to what troubles them and the world around them, it is anchored by staples from the band’s live sets. The album includes their urgent, vociferous version of Dave Olney’s anti-capitalist anthem, “Millionaire,” and an equally-vehement rendition of the anti-gun violence treatise “Red Fox Run,” written by Cecelia and Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon.

Big Richard opens Pet with a blistering medley of Sims’ song, “It’s Gonna Fall” and the Bill Monroe fiddle tune, “Old Daingerfield”: “Our air has turned to poison and our water catches flame / You know we’re blowing out the ground under our beds in which we lay / And we’re digging holes we’ll never fill, the ground shakes to protest / But we just close our minds and eyes and ears, there ain’t no stopping progress,” Sims sings despairingly about the destruction of the natural world through fire and flood, and the fracking wells she sees springing up in Colorado.

Coming from backgrounds in bluegrass, country, jazz, classical, rock, and beyond, Big Richard pushes the bluegrass envelope while remaining firmly planted in tradition. They mix high-energy old-time numbers like “Greasy Coat” with covers of Radiohead, Billie Eilish and Lorde.

Political commentary and social justice themes are delivered alongside material that is rollicking good fun. Unlike other artists who cancelled their Kennedy Center appearances after Donald Trump’s takeover of the national arts institution, Big Richard in July of 2025 came dressed as the U.S. Founding Fathers and did Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, closing with an unconventional rendition of The Star Spangled Banner that would have Jimi Hendrix smiling.

Big Richard on Bandcamp