Richard Bishop was born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1960. He is best known for his 26 year involvement with the band Sun City Girls and as an experimental solo guitarist whose work often reflects the shadow worlds of India, the Middle East, North Africa and the backwoods of southern Appalachia.

"Technically, I began playing the guitar when I was 11. My parents bought me this cheap Buck Owens styled red, white and blue guitar and talked me into taking lessons. That lasted about three weeks - it just didn't work out. A couple years later I thought I would give it another try so I acquired a slightly better guitar and proceeded to teach myself how to play the damn thing."

Richard, along with his brother Alan, left Michigan in 1979 and settled in Phoenix, AZ.  In 1982 the brothers joined up with drummer Charles Gocher and formed the long-running experimental underground group Sun City Girls, who from 1982-2007, produced an extensive discography of over 50 full length albums, 20 one-hour cassettes and a dozen 7” records. Also in 1982 Richard was a member of the group Paris 1942 which included former Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker, Alan Bishop,  and J. Akkari (Jesse Srogoncik). Three albums of material from this insane union was issued by Superior Viaduct in 2025. 

Bishop’s first solo record, Salvador Kali, came out under the name Sir Richard Bishop in 1998 on John Fahey’s Revenant Records label, showcasing the hypnotizing sprawl of his particular obsessions and roots. Locust Music issued his next one, Improvika (2004), which consisted of nine extemporaneous pieces for solo acoustic guitar. In 2005, he began performing full time as a solo artist. Fingering the Devil (2006), recorded impromptu at London’s Southern Studios on a day off during his 2005 European tour, was quickly followed by three more Locust releases: Elektronika Demonika (2006), a recording of electronic sound experiments and no guitar at all, While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (2007), three extended compositions for acoustic and electric guitar, and a DVD of Richard's 30-minute film God Damn Religion, a seizure-inducing montage of occult imagery released in 2008. 

Sir Richard debuted on Drag City Records in 2007. Polytheistic Fragments contained works for acoustic, electric and lap steel guitar, plus two piano compositions. This was followed by 2009’s The Freak of Araby. Bishop's tribute to late Egyptian guitarist Omar Khorshid was a celebration as well of the Middle Eastern music that his grandfather played him in his youth. 2015’s Tangier Sessions is a series of improvisations recorded in Morocco using a 19th century parlor guitar of mysterious origin. During this time, Richard joined with Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny and percussive dervish Chris Corsano to form Rangda, producing three Drag City releases with additional LPs on Unrock and Ba Da Bing! Records. His solo Drag City titles have kept on as well: Oneiric Formulary (2020), Hillbilly Ragas (2025) and Hillbilly Erotica (2026), while additional SRB albums have been released by Unrock, Ideologic Organ, Southern Lord, VDSQ, and other labels (see discography for details).

On a slightly different note, Richard Bishop is also an antiquarian bookseller specializing in the occult, esoterica, and more. You can find out all about that HERE