Steve Radcliff

Steve has been a part of the NE Ohio music scene since 2001 when he started playing acoustic music at open mics and coffee shops. Steve got a late start in the music business due to a career in IT that had him moving around the country chasing promotions in the Telecom industry. Steve’s story is not unlike any other regional musicians growing up in the midwest.

Steve’s early influences come from a mix of the folk, rock, and country genres. As a kid he was fascinated with faces on TV such as Glenn Campbell, Roy Clark, and David Cassidy. It was these guys who drove Steve to beg for an acoustic guitar and lessons at the local music store. Through high school and his early adult years Steve plinked on the acoustic guitar but he quickly realized he was not going to labelled as a prodigy! The one thing he had going for him was that he loved to practice, no matter how bad he sounded.

It was the mid to late eighties and music was changing. The guitar had been replaced by keyboards on the radio. Heavy metal was the alternative but there just wasn’t much acoustic guitar picking in heavy metal. This is when Steve switched his dial over to country. Guys like Steve Wariner, Jerry Reed, and Michael Johnson were in heavy rotation still. The musicianship was unreal. These guys came up with amazing chord voicings and their electric guitars were clean. Something about their approach appealed to Steve and he thought that maybe he too could learn to pick like these guys.

Lots of practice and inspiration from these expert pickers eventually paid off. Steve was finally performing solo acoustic shows throughout the early 2000s’. In 2003 he opened a music store in Twinsburg OH called GitterPicker String Factory. This was a side hustle that allowed Steve to get connected with the NE Ohio music scene. The store led to him meeting his duo partner Larnie Zellner who is a gifted harmonica player in NE Ohio. As a solo act and as a duo act Steve played hundreds of shows through the 2010s.  

The music store opened a few important doors. One door was the rediscovery of the electric guitar, specifically the Telecaster. The second door was the formation of his first country band - Post Road in 2011. Steve sold the music store back in 2012 and became a full time musician starting in 2022. Most of his performance time is as a solo guitarist. He and Larnie Zellner still perform duo shows several times a year. Post Road is still going strong with a reduced schedule.  

Steve’s latest project is a yacht rock band called Three Day Weekend. This three piece band is made up of veteran musicians in NE Ohio - Dave Warner (Post Road, Trip Side) and Michael Scott Nelson (Escape, In The Heartland, Vinyl Tap, Hot Blooded, TUFF).