In December 2003, American webzine Somewhere Cold voted The Novelist EP of the Year on their 2003 Somewhere Cold Awards Hall of Fame list, while a year later, in December 2004, they ranked The Richard Swift Collection Vol. 1 released by Leftwing Recordings in August 2004. Swift also released The Novelist in 2003 and Walking Without Effort (recorded in 2001) in 2005 and combined the two albums to create the double-disc The Richard Swift Collection Vol. From 2002 to 2005, he released four small pressings of 'properly manufactured' 7' vinyl singles via Velvet Blue Music. He recorded much of his early music on a four-track cassette recorder. That same year, he recorded Walking Without Effort, an initially unreleased album with drummer and producer Frank Lenz. In 2001, Swift moved to Southern California to pursue his solo recording career. Also in 2002 he was a musician on the Promise Keepers Live Worship album. While in 2002 released an album called Company with Frank Lenz and Elijah Thomson. Ricardo 'Dicky' Ochoa released his first solo album under the name Dicky Ochoa on Metro One Recordings in 2000. As a teenager, he worked at a farm near International Falls, Minnesota.

In his youth, his family moved frequently, spending time in rural locations in Minnesota, Utah, and Oregon. Born in California on Mawith the name Ricardo Ochoa, into a musical Quaker family, Swift started performing and singing in churches at an early age.

Richard swift the novelist rar