PRESS RELEASE

ROCK STAR – GUITAR LEGEND – SONGWRITER

RIK EMMETT

Monday, February 4^th at the Bell Performing Arts Centre in Surrey

Advance tickets on sale 10AM Saturday, December 8th

$23.50 (plus Service Charges) at all Ticketmaster outlets

Rock.It Boy Entertainment takes pride in presenting one of Canada’s most amazing, consistent and prolific musicians, the unstoppable RIK EMMETT, in concert on Monday February 4^th at the Bell Performing Arts Centre at 6250 144^th Street, Surrey.  Advance tickets go on sale at 10AM on Saturday, December 8^th for $23.50 (plus Service Charges) at all Ticketmaster outlets. RIK EMMETT was a relatively unknown singer/songwriter/guitarist on the local Toronto scene in September of 1975 when he joined a newly-formed hard-rock trio called Triumph. By 1979, three albums had gone gold and platinum in Canada. By 1981 they were firmly established as one of the premier touring rock acts in North America, with generous FM radio airplay and heavy rotation on MTV. In the next seven years, the band released a total of ten gold albums, with four rising to platinum in Canada. In the U.S., two went gold. The name RIK EMMETT frequently appeared in guitar magazine polls and he won several prestigious awards, including Best Lead Guitarist nationally in1981. Rik left the band in 1988 to fly solo starting with three albums for Duke Street/MCA Records in the early ‘90s. The first album, Absolutely went gold in 1990, as the hits “Saved by Love” and “Big Lie” rode the waves on FM radio while beginning the transition from arena rock. The ballad “When a Heart Breaks” then into other radio formats and revealed a more sensitive singer/songwriter persona. “World of Wonder” also received substantial airplay and revealed an expanding lyrical and stylistic range. The Ipso Facto CD followed in 1992, offering up the hits “Out of The Blue” (a jazzy-bluesy tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughn, Hendrix and Wes Montgomery) and “Bang On”, a rocking return to one of Rik’s personal themes – positive motivation and inspiration. The singer/songwriter album called Spiral Notebook followed in 1995, which earned notice through airplay of the balladeer singles “Let Me Be The One” and “The Longing”. Rik then formed his own record label and released a trio of albums: Ten Invitations from the Mistress of Mr E. featuring original instrumentals of accomplished classical nylon-string fingerstyle guitar,   Swing Shift featuring jazz, swing and fusion and then Raw Quartet in early 1999 displaying Rik’s passion and affinity for blues.  1999’s Live at Berklee (highlights from sold out shows at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston) was followed by the traditional Spirit Of Christmas album, recorded in collaboration with Glass Tiger keyboardist Sam Reid. 2002 brought the release of a 20th Century Masters, a best of Rik Emmett collection through Universal, and another widely-acclaimed instrumental smooth jazz masterpiece CD, Handiwork. In of 2003 the acoustic singer/songwriter RIK EMMETT re-emerged with the Good Faith CD, and another new chapter was written as tunes like “Break Away” and “Way Back Home” became staples in the live concert set.  In 2005, Rik was honoured as Guitarist of the Year at the Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards, and in the spring of 2006, the CD entitled Strung-Out Troubadours, a collaboration with his long-time sideman, Dave Dunlop offered yet another dimension as the two guitarists formed a challenging duo of rootsy-folk-meets-virtuoso guitar. Rik has released 23 CDs and two DVDs, spanning the categories of rock, jazz, blues, classical, folk, pop and new age, and he often plays these styles all together in one show.  He has played to audiences of over 250,000 people, but is just as comfortable in front of a nightclub crowd. He was inducted into the Canadian Rock Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Music Industry Hall of Fame in 2007. Don’t miss this opportunity to see the uniquely talented RIK EMMETT in concert on Monday, February 4^th at the Bell Performing Arts Centre at 6250 144^th Street, Surrey (phone 604-596-8189).  Advance tickets go on sale on Saturday, December 8th for $23.50 (plus Service Charges) at all Ticketmaster outlets (online at www.ticketmaster.ca or charge–by-phone at 604-280-4444) or $30.00 at the door. The doors open at 7:00PM, with the show starting at 7:30PM.

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