About

A multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, visual artist, and fiction writer, Rigo performs solo and is also lead vocalist and guitarist for the rock band Black Door '74 (www.blackdoor74band.com). 

Background

Rigo was born in Grand Prairie, TX, has lived throughout the US and India, and now lives in Amherst, MA. He began music on the violin at the age of 8 and picked up keyboard, guitar, and an array of other instruments as a teenager.

The son of two Marine Corps veterans, Rigo attended college on a VA scholarship and eventually earned a PhD in Cultural Anthropology. He had a successful academic career, earned tenure, and his academic writing appeared in such venues as Race Ethnicity and Education, City & Society, and Review of Radical Political Economics. 

In 2021, Rigo left academia to focus on his art and parenting. His fiction writing has appeared in such venues as Syncopation Literary Journal, THEMA, Middleground Magazine, and A Thin Slice of Anxiety. He is querying a couple of novel manuscripts and performing in support of Black Door ’74's first album, released in February 2024: https://blackdoor74.bandcamp.com/album/whisper-becomes-a-roar