Splitting her time between the Northumbrian folk scene, wailing her heart out in honky tonk, rockabilly bands and rocking with Status Quo front man Francis Rossi, Hannah Rickard is part of a musical soul firmly rooted in the North East of England, while partly lost in a world of 1950s Americana.
Based in Newcastle, Rickard was raised on her father's bluegrass and country records before studying music at Liverpool University, and she cut her teeth playing in family bands and with the hard twanging throwbacks Honey Bop Trio. It was as part of Kathryn Tickell's Northumbrian Voices traditional folk project that Rickard really started touring as a singer and fiddle player in 2012, but before one gig at the Southbank Centre in London, allegedly, her cousin Lou turned up in van and swept her away to start a new band. Lou had been crashing around in psychobilly bands for over a decade when Rickard sent him some of her original songs and decided he'd round up a few of his cohorts from the rockabilly-punk scene and set up an impromptu recording session at his studio in Holloway. The group became Hannah Rickard and the Relatives, recorded a string of high-energy, good-time, rockabilly tracks and even supported Tom Jones at a gig at Alnwick Castle in 2015, before Rickard was recruited to join blues rock institution Status Quo on their unplugged, acoustic tour of Europe. Front man Francis Rossi ended up being so impressed by her belting voice and lively fiddle playing that the pair created a set of original soulful country-pop songs with Bob Young and together released their first duet album 'We Talk Too Much' in 2019.
