Los Angeles, CA — California country singer-songwriter Rick Shea will release his new album Smoke Tree Road on February 20 via Tres Pescadores Records. The announcement arrives alongside the album’s first single, “El Diablo Manda” (“The Devil Commands”), a stark, clear-eyed meditation on the current state of the nation and one of Shea’s most direct and resonant statements to date.

A master craftsman bridging classic country tradition with a contemporary sensibility, Shea has spent five decades refining a style defined by stoic Western restraint and deep emotional clarity. His delivery—measured, understated, and quietly smoldering—allows the songs on Smoke Tree Road to unfold with uncommon power and grace

Los Angeles, CA — California country singer-songwriter Rick Shea will release his new album Smoke Tree Road on February 20 via Tres Pescadores Records. The announcement arrives alongside the album’s first single, “El Diablo Manda” (“The Devil Commands”), a stark, clear-eyed meditation on the current state of the nation and one of Shea’s most direct and resonant statements to date.

A master craftsman bridging classic country tradition with a contemporary sensibility, Shea has spent five decades refining a style defined by stoic Western restraint and deep emotional clarity. His delivery—measured, understated, and quietly smoldering—allows the songs on Smoke Tree Road to unfold with uncommon power and grace

Americana Highways Rick Shea, Love & Desperation. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Rick Shea, whose varied resume embraces work with Dave Alvin, Katy Moffatt, and Wanda Jackson, has a winner on his hands with his 12th album. Love & Desperation kicks off on a high note with Al Ferrier’s “Blues Stop Knockin’ at My Door,” an irresistible toe-tapper and the only number here that Shea didn’t write (or in a few cases, cowrite). Other standouts include the accordion-spiced “Big Rain Is Comin’ Mama,” the autobiographical title cut, and “The World’s Gone Crazy,” a bluesy number that the Southern California-based singer says came to him “after watching a particularly harrowing episode of The Rachel Maddow Show.”

"Sawbones" - AIM 1999/ Rereleased as "Bound for Trouble" Tres Pescadores 2006 Shea is to interior California what Joe Ely is to West Texas, two pinches of old Mexico, a blast of exhaust from the boss man's Suburban and a baseline of working stiff desperation…and the best goddamn country voice since Merle hisself. **** Four stars! Jackson Griffith/Pulse Magazine

Released in 1994. "The Buffalo Show" - 1995 ML …expert playing and songwriting…first rate…exquisite… Mike Boehm/LA Times …a powerful musical personality…Shea's best songs rank with anybody's best… Jim Washburn/OCWeekly …of all the people combining classic honky-tonk with conjunto, Shea has the best voice, top ten pick… Joel Bernstein/Country Standard Time