Ritchie Fliegler refers to himself as “the lucky guy.”

“Why am I the lucky guy? “It’s because every job I’ve ever had, every penny I’ve ever made, was with a guitar,” Fliegler says to his regular crowd at Bone Haus Brewing, the local Fountain Hills watering hole where he performs regularly.

His next performance there will be held on Friday, July 14, at 6:30 p.m. where the community can enjoy an evening of family-friendly music.

“My show is as G-rated as any Disney show anywhere,” Fliegler said. “There’s no four-letter words, there’s not even an allusion to anything. It’s a G-rated show in every sense of the word.”

The Friday show will also host the Yum Rockets food truck which serves burgers, rockets (sandwiches) drinks and includes a kid’s menu. The taproom is open until 10 p.m. and Fliegler will perform until 8:30 p.m.

A life of stories

On stage, Fliegler marries his lifelong career of playing and making music with his love of storytelling to bond with his audience, a skill he's been refining for decades.

“Everybody everywhere has a life story to tell and I’d like to think for the most part, that there’s music involved somewhere,” Fliegler said.

Fliegler says whether folks know it or not, music dances through the background of their deepest memories; from the sounds coming from the radio during childhood or the music playing when someone first meets their significant other, music-evoked autobiographical memory is a universal thing. To Fliegler, it’s the soundtrack for his life’s stories.

“The stories are the glue. They’re stories of my life,” he said.

During his set, Fliegler tells tales of the time he met two members of The Beatles, his experience touring with the Velvet Underground and the moment he purchased his first Rolling Stones record as a boy.

After years of performing with names like Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, John Waite and Billy Joel, Fliegler had a chance encounter with Jim Marshall of Marshall Amplifiers. Marshall liked Fliegler’s energy and asked him to be his new U.S. product manager. Fliegler worked for Marshall for six years before getting noticed by Fender, the guitar manufacturer based in Scottsdale. In 1995, Fliegler and his family moved from New York to Fountain Hills where he spent the next 12 years working for Fender, retiring as a senior vice president to return to his love of playing music.

“I started to get back to the DNA me,” Fliegler said, who began performing at Bone Haus Brewing and the Town of Fountain Hills’ Concerts on the Avenue series.

“It was inevitable,” Fliegler wrote in a recent Facebook post. “Music is who I am, I could only hold out for so long.”

An entertainer

Fliegler said musicians can be categorized into four groups: wallpaper musicians, jukeboxers, singer/songwriters and entertainers. Fliegler sets himself firmly in the entertainer camp because, while he might have a guitar in his hands, deconstructing songs and making them his own, Fliegler’s goal is to entertain and engage anyone who comes to watch him perform.

Living in Fountain Hills with his wife, Leslie, Fliegler said he looks out every morning over Four Peaks and Weaver’s Needle, saying that he’s found heaven on earth.

“If I’m not the lucky guy, who is?” he said.