LUBBOCK, Texas – Billy Bowes, host of “Swinging Country,” revealed recently that Rick Norcross, longtime bandleader of Rick & The All-Star Ramblers Western Swing Band, has been named to the 2026 Heroes of Western Swing Hall of Fame by the Cowtown Society of Western Music with induction ceremonies set for May 2, at their annual Western Swing Fest in Mineral Wells, Texas.
photo by Dave Rowell
Norcross, is a singer-songwriter, based in Burlington and a third-generation Hardwick Academy graduate, who resided in East Hardwick as a child.
He led the seven-piece band, The All Star Ramblers, and recently retired from music after playing more than 1,000 shows over a 60-year span. Norcross wrote and re-leased “You Can’t Make It Up,” a song about attending the 1962 Hardwick Academy Junior Prom where the only place to buy a corsage was the town funeral home. That song went on to be honored by the Academy of Western Artists “Western Swing Song Of The Year.”
Norcross also wrote the theme song, “I Love Western Swing,” for the Cowtown Birth-place of Western Swing Festival, a three-day event held annually in Fort Worth. Norcross has released 13 albums on the Airflyte Records label and Vermont author, Stephen Russell Payne, wrote the book, the Norcross biography, “Rid-ing My Guitar – The Rick Norcross Story.”
