Featured image provided by Big Blues Bender (left to right – Lee Booth, Intrepid artist Gary Hoey, and Rick Booth)

“I used to sneak into clubs here in Charlotte. The Double Door, The Yellow Rose, Kidnappers, Johnny Dollars, were all the places that I frequented with a fake ID.” Rick Booth says as he leans back in his chair smiling. Surrounded by decades worth of music memorabilia his office is a personal music museum. Everything from signed guitars to concert posters adorn the walls. There are bobblehead dolls, hundreds of them, staring at me as I sit in a chair across from him.

After a thirty-minute discussion on NASCAR and how it was that a farm kid from Oregon ended up sitting here interviewing him, I can see first hand why so many artists love working for his company, Intrepid Artists. Before we talked about him, he wanted to know about me. That sort of interest in a stranger is rare these days. I’ve interviewed people who won’t even look you in the eye while you talk.

This man has a deep-seated passion not only for music but also the human beings who create it. He’s been booking, managing, and promoting musical acts since he was in college, and his agency, Intrepid Artists—which he started after only a few years of doing this professionally— will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with two concurrent shows in Charlotte. On November 8th, the new Amos’ Southend will host the first of the two shows while The Neighborhood Theatre plays host November 9th.

Booth got started in college while he was the social chairman of his fraternity. He got to know a lot of booking agents at that time and was even told, “Hey man, you’re going to be a booking agent someday.” But at the time it seemed as though his destiny was to join the family business and work for his father.

“My dad had been in business for 30 plus years, and I was to take over the hardware business. And that’s what I did. I went into the hardware business, I worked for my dad for about three years,” says Booth. “You know, I give a ton of credit to my dad for teaching me skills on how to run a business and teaching me the right way to treat people. I have a great amount of respect for my dad. He worked me hard, we didn’t see eye to eye, that kind of stuff. I think we both had enough of each other, and he told me to hit the road. That was the best thing that could have ever happened in my life.”

Leaving the family business behind, Rick called up a friend and went to work for a talent agency. They booked several hit attractions in the Charlotte area, and it allowed Rick to get his feet wet in an industry he would come to know so well. But, after a few bounced paychecks, he moved on.

“A guy that moved down here from Boston named Steve Hecht who owned Piedmont Talent. He somehow heard about me through the grapevine and interviewed me. We really hit it off. Steve had some blues artists such as Matt “Guitar” Murphy from the Blues Brothers, Jimmy Thackery and The Assassins, a very popular zydeco band named Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, and mostly other traditional blues and zydeco music. I worked for Steve four and a half years, and at that point, I felt it was time to step out on my own,” Rick says.

He fidgets in his chair a little bit before saying, “I didn’t always like the business practices in the music industry. So when I went to start Intrepid I was going to try to put my own spin on it so to speak and try to bring what my dad taught me in a normal business to the music business. And so that’s how Intrepid started in December of 1994.”

Signing several acts like Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers, Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Skeeter Brandon, and The Rank Outsiders, Rick set out to start a booking agency that showcased the music he loves and built on the business ethics he had learned from his father. He also found himself using lessons from his sociology degree to communicate with people and navigate the sometimes trying world of balancing the needs of several parties. Keeping artists, venue owners, and promoters happy is not always an easy feat. In this day and age of digital communication, Booth takes an old school approach. He actually picks up his phone and uses it to make an old-fashioned phone call from time to time.

“So my senior year I switched over to Sociology and, man, I’ve certainly had it pay off when dealing with and managing personalities. From the office to the bands to the clients you deal with every day. Man, I learned a lot. I really did. And I didn’t know that till much later in life, how much I really used it. I think my forte is solving problems and communication, where today I think communication is out the door with a lot of people. People don’t pick up the phone to communicate, I will pick up the phone and communicate and make a problem, right. And I know how to deal with personalities. So yeah, all that traces back to the sociology degree.”

For two and a half decades Rick Booth and Intrepid Artists have stayed true to grass-roots boutique music. Representing artists like Popa Chubby, Vanessa Collier, Toronzo Cannon has kept Intrepid grounded in the original idea. Sticking with what they know has allowed them to weather an ever-changing musical landscape and help shed light on an art form that has been pushed to the fringes in lieu of electronic and pop music.

When asked why he does it that way, Rick says with a determined look in his eye, “I believe in doing one thing well, and that’s not to say that I don’t like to branch out a bit. I’ve dabbled in pop and jazz. Everybody thinks blues and jazz are the same and they’re not. It’s a completely different circuit. It’s a different animal. And as far as I know, there’s nobody that does this circuit better than Intrepid Artists. We know the blues and American roots circuit. We work with all the buyers overseas. I feel like we found a niche that we were good at. And while a lot of other people around us had fallen over the years, we’re still here.”

Intrepid Artists International 25th Anniversary tickets

Nov. 8th at Amos’ Southend: Purchase

Nov. 9th at Neighborhood Theatre: Purchase