Roy Lanham born 16 January 1923

Roy Lanham (16 January 1923 - 14 February 1991) was known primarily as guitarist for the Sons of the Pioneers from 1961 through 1986. He also led the Whippoorwills for many years and performed as a solo artist, recording albums of country-jazz guitar instrumentals under his own name in the late '50s and early '60s. Despite his relative obscurity, Lanham is often esteemed on the level of such well-known guitar greats as Chet Atkins and Merle Travis.

Roy Howard Lanham was born in Corbin, KY, and picked up the guitar at an early age. Beginning as a teenager he found radio work as a rhythm guitarist in a number of instrumental combos, one of which was eventually hired by pop vocalist Gene Austin and renamed the Whippoorwills. In this group Lanham functioned as lead guitarist, performing in a jazzy style influenced by Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt but distinguished by his development of a four-part harmony chord technique he would alternate with single-string figures.

In 1943 Lanham joined Cincinnati's WLW, a 50,000-watt station that allowed him the opportunity to work with King Records, for which he soon performed regularly as a session guitarist, appearing on recordings by Hank Penny and the Delmore Brothers, among others. After participating in one Chet Atkins session in 1946 for the Bullet label, Lanham moved to Dayton and re-formed the Whippoorwills.

                             

For the next few years the combo toured, recorded transcriptions for Smiley Burnette's radio show in Hollywood and collaborated with Merle Travis on six sides for Capitol in the early '50s. It was during his tenure with Smiley Burnette's show that Lanham first 

met the Sons of the Pioneers, who invited the Whippoorwills to fill in for them on their radio show while the Sons were on tour.

Lanham found additional session work recording separately with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette as well as Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves, Bonnie Guitar, the Browns, and the Fleetwoods, in addition to recording singles under his own name and with the Whippoorwills. The success of the Fleetwoods singles on which he appeared led to his recording of a solo LP in 1959 and the sole Whippoorwills album, Sizzling Strings, later that year.

During his time with the Sons of the Pioneers, he appeared in many movies, movie shorts, and a television show with Roy Rogers. His best known acting performance was in the 1963 film short "30 Minutes at Gunsight". Also between tours he demonstrated Fender guitar equipment at National Association of Music Merchant Shows at various cities, including Nashville.

Lanham had open-heart surgery in 1980, but was back onstage within two months. In 1983 he went to Phoenix and worked with pioneer steel guitarist Bud Isaacs, Duane Eddy, Thumbs Carllile, Jethro Burns, and fiddler Johnny Gimble, in an event Isaacs called the Great American Jam. He continued with the Pioneers and played on Tex Williams final LP. Around this time he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Though surgery appeared successful he suffered a stroke although he recovered sufficiently to return playing though not to rejoin the Pioneers.

In 1989 he was found to have prostate cancer, from which he succumbed to on Feb 14^th 1991 (age 68) in Camarillo, California, USA. He was given surprisingly few obituaries outside the western music field. Given the consistency of his work and the artistic sense of his musical vision, ne deserved better.

(Edited from All Music & article in Soutwest Shuffle by Rich Kienzie)

Roy Lanham was one of the best.  The fact that he kept in western circles all his life didn't hide the fact that he was also one of the top jazz guitarists of all time.  Here Roy and his band the Whip-Oor-Wills show why they were one of the greatest ensembles of the 1940's.