Richard Dwight “Rico” Stover (b. 1945, Clinton, Iowa) grew up in California where he attended Roosevelt High School in Fresno and later Fresno State University. He earned a degree in Latin American Ethnomusicology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1975. During his many years as a guitarist and investigator, he has lived in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

While in high school Stover was selected as an exchange student with the American Field Service Program and spent a summer in the Central American nation of Costa Rica. It was there that he discovered the guitar and Latin American culture, two themes that have figured prominently in his life. He began his personal journey with the guitar by learning Costa Rican folk songs with rhythmic chordal accompaniments. Then one day he heard a classical guitarist whose playing deeply interested him. This guitarist, Juan de Dios Trejos, was in fact a student of the great Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944). Sr. Trejos advised young Stover to seek out a teacher upon his return to California, which Stover did, thus beginning his study of the classical guitar and love affair with Latin America.