Singer, musician, songwriter, actor and born-again vaudevillian Rick Good, this year’s recipient of the Ohio Heritage Fellowship for Performing Arts, has been a vital part of the Dayton area music scene since the late 1960s. From his days in the Hotmud Family to his 23-year run with Rhythm in Shoes, Good has made a significant contribution to the traditional arts of southern Ohio and to keeping those arts alive through performing and tireless advocacy.

A native of Dayton who has lived in the Greene County town of Spring Valley since the 1970s, Good started his career as a professional musician shortly after graduating from Carroll High School in 1969. Inspired by such musicians as Mike Seeger, Good aspired to be a “one-man folk festival,” and has performed solo gigs sporadically through the years. Good joined forces with Suzanne Thomas and Dave Edmundson a couple of years later in the Hotmud Family, a very popular old-time country and bluegrass band that recorded six albums (the last two on Flying Fish), as well as two albums backing up Fiddlin’ Van Kidwell.

After the Hotmud Family called it quits, Good played with an eclectic trio called the Rugcutters. He also played occasionally with the Red Clay Ramblers, the iconoclastic old-time band from North Carolina, after the 2003 death of founding Rambler Tommy Thompson. Good’s connection with the Ramblers also includes The Last Song of John Proffitt, a fascinating one-man musical play written by Tommy Thompson that Good first performed at Yellow Springs Center Stage in the mid-1980s. Good recorded Nova Town, an album of his original songs which were at the center of a stage play he wrote and Rhythm in Shoes performed, in 1997.

Rhythm in Shoes, an internationally acclaimed traditional dance and music ensemble, was co-founded in 1987 by Good and dancer/choreographer Sharon Leahy. The ensemble’s melding of swing tunes and old-time country music with tap and clog dancing was a hit from the beginning, earning rave reviews from such publications as The Village Voice and the Boston Globe. The Shoes toured extensively, performing in all but three states as well as in Canada, Japan and Ireland.

At home, the Shoes became a major presence on the Dayton arts scene. RIS was prominently featured during Dayton’s Centennial of Flight Celebration in 2003 in the hit production Vaudeville, 1903. That same year, the ensemble premiered Rambleshoe, a no-holds-barred collaboration with the Red Clay Ramblers. Other memorable Shoes’ highlights include Holiday on Thin Ice, an annual holiday tradition in the Miami Valley, and Banjo Dance, a tribute to the music and dance of the southern Appalachians.