Performing with Steve Moore at White Salmon Guitar in White Salmon, Washington

Amanda Richards creates her distinctive rocking bohemian country music deftly balanced on the fulcrum between tradition and utterly contemporary innovation and savoir faire. It has won the Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, musician and entertainer an Independent Music Award, six first-round Grammy nominations, critical acclaim, international attention, leading light stature on her city's burgeoning neo-roots scene with her band The Good Long Whiles, and devoted fans that savor the up-to-date sharpness she brings to a wealth of tried and true musical sounds. Over the course of five albums this multi-talented modern young woman has risen to become an artist ready to make her mark in Americana and beyond in the years to come. As critic Paul Riley declares in England's Country Music People, "Right now I regard Amanda Richards one of country music's most important singers."

As Willamette Week observes of her zombie-themed, Best Concept Album award-winnng album, 2011's Play Dead, "If Sam Raimi and Bonnie Raitt had a baby, it might turn out an awful lot like Amanda Richards." She made her recorded debut in 2001 with an EP, Last Train, followed by the albums Not Always Sexy (2004), Live at Mississippi Studios (2006) and an imaginative and unique eight-song holiday album, Bleak Winter (2013).

Richards has become a frequent and popular presence on the Portland live music scene, playing with her band – as well as solo and in duo and other configurations at such venues as the Aladdin and Alberta Rose Theaters, Laurelthirst Public House and other top area clubs. She has been featured on NPR's River City Folk in an hour-long interview and appeared at SXSW 2008 as a finalist in FameCast's Pop Fenom competition live show and webcast. Her live performances of Play Dead – hailed as a "masterpiece" by Country Music People –have evolved into musical theater extravaganzas with Amanda and her musicians playing out the story in full undead regalia.

Her deft feel for the finest old-school country, rock, blues and folk strains is something she comes by honestly and in fact genetically as the granddaughter of Rusty Richards, who sang and played with cowboy music legends The Sons of the Pioneers for nearly two decades. It all adds up to a "bold-voiced artist" (CoOpted), "highly talented songwriter" (Country Music People), alluring live performer, and skilled studio craftswoman whose recordings are delicately woven and beautifully realized. "She’s spellbinding across the spectrum," concludes the Portland Tribune, "and a standout whose star is on the rise."

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