As a musician, Ritchie has had a tepid and less than stellar career. Over the course of his long and miserable existance he has taken many music lessons and has had a veritable cornucopia of not so successful guitar teachers. He began at the tender age of 8 learning to play the drums. This was a serious issue for his parents as he started out with only a snare drum and progressed quickly on it. He then recieved a bass drum and a single crash cymbal for his next birthday and that's when the you know what hit the fan.  Ritchie was hooked and no amount of persuasian was going to deter him from assembiling a full tilt rock and roll drum kit. By the end of the summer he was the loudest kid on the block....even without the drums. It was on the occasion of the summer of his 11th year that Ritchie, to the delight of his father at least, discovered bluegrass music. An acoustic and much quieter form of music than heavy metal drums. With encouragement from his parents, Ritchie added acoustic guitar to his arsenal of musical instruments. When his father's ears finally quit bleeding Ritchie sold his drums and added mandolin to his collection . He soon began to sneak in and play his father's banjo as well. Then came the elctric guitar, electric bass guitar, lap steel guitar, dobro and fiddle. He has dabbled in playing the harmonica and piano as well although most of these attempts to learn were met with catastrophic failure. For a more detailed bio send 5,000,000.00 dollars (money order only) to PO BOX 460 New Johnsonville, TN 37134 for an official unofficial memoir written by someone other than Ritchie himself.