Rick Fitzgerald

Rick is a self-taught folksinger/songwriter from Franklin, Wisconsin. An accomplished 6 & 12-string guitar player, he grew up influenced by the music of people like Peter, Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio, and John Denver. He took up the autoharp in 1977 after seeing Bryan Bowers perform.  Almost immediately, Rick bought an autoharp, began tweaking it to emulate “that sound” and soon arrived at a diatonic layout with fewer chord bars and doubled strings.  He primarily played and sang for his own amusement until 1999, when it was again Bryan Bowers who introduced him to the wider world of autoharp players through the Autoharp Quarterly magazine, luthier George Orthey, and the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering.   Rick attended his first MLAG in 2005, absorbing the workshops and sitting-in on jams with other musicians for the first time since college days. He entered the MLAG contest as a way of challenging himself to improve as a player.  Four years later he was the 2009 Mountain Laurel Autoharp Champion. 

When not working or performing, Rick volunteers his time on the board of directors for the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering, and is chairman of the Make Our Own (MOO) Music Gathering, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to teaching and preserving acoustic “living room music” in the American folk tradition. 

Rick is known for his rhythmic, diatonic playing style.  He has recorded four CDs, Earth Without Art, Chasing Sunshine, Living Up to a Dream and Crossing the Water.  He teaches privately and has been featured at festivals around the country, including the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering, Buckeye Dulcimer Festival and the Northwest Autoharp Gathering.

Rick and his wife Erina have two grown sons and a lovely granddaughter. They also raise and show Great Pyrenees dogs.