Richard Digance

Richard Digance was born on 24th February 1949 in West Ham, London. His father was a lorry driver for Ford Motor Company and his mother worked in a sweet factory.

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He studied at college in Glasgow where the regular visitor to his Minard Road flat was John Martyn, although Richard regards his main inspiration as his lifelong friend Ralph McTell. Richard and Ralph played together in a Sunday League football team, The Blue Moon All Stars, along with Denny Laine of Wings and blues singer Cliff Aungier.

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Richard dropped out of college and returned to London with John Martyn and his folk club career began.

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It is estimated that Richard has headlined over 2,000 concerts.

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His first major British tour was in 1973, supporting Steeleye Span, In the years that followed he  completed more British tours supporting Jethro Tull, Joan Armatrading, David Essex, Supertramp, Elkie Brooks, Tom Jones, Richard & Linda Thompson and Supertramp before becoming a headline artist in his own right. He says being a support act was a 9 year apprenticeship before headlining his own tours.

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In America, Richard supported Steve Martin, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, John Hartford, Esther Phillips and The Allman Brothers.

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At The London Palladium on various occasions, Richard has supported Elton John, James Taylor, Roy Orbison, Crystal Gayle and Robin Williams.

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Guests on his own TV series for LWT included Brian May, The Moody Blues, Status Quo, Elkie Brooks, Suzi Quatro, Juan Martin and Marc Cohn and he played guitar with them all. His first TV appearance was The Old Grey Whistle Test but his TV career began as a studio audience warm-up performer for Des O'Connor and Matthew Kelly.

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He had his own BBC Radio 2 series for 7 years and appeared on Channel 4s Countdown nearly 200 times as well as his own TV specials that ran for 11 years.

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On his London Capital Radio Show he interviewed Joni Mitchell, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou Harris and many others over the course of nearly 5 years. He became a qualified radio producer with Mike Smith at Elstree Radio School.

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He is a BAFTA Nominated entertainer and a Gold Award recipient from The British Academy of Songwriters & Composers

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As well as a regular at The Fairport Cropredy Festival Richard appeared at The Knebworth Festival supporting The Beach Boys, Santana and Mike Oldfield. He also created The New Forest Folk Festival, originally as a birthday bash for his friend, Keith Curtis.

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Away from music, Richard's biggest love is painting and he's had various exhibitions including at St George's, Regent Street, London.

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Richard has two children, Polly and Rosie, and was divorced in 2001. He also has two grandchildren, Isabella and Ellie.

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Richard lives in Wiltshire, on the outskirts of Salisbury and has a love of animals, being President of The East London RSPCA and funding a stray cats home in his native East End of London. During COVID lockdown a fox carried a kitten into Richard's garden, and although badly wounded Bubble, so named because she entered Richard's bubble, is still with him today in perfect health.