Hank Garland born 11 November 1930

Walter Louis Garland (11 November 1930 – 27 December 2004) professionally Hank Garland, was an American guitarist and songwriter. He started as a country musician, played rock and roll as it became popular in the 1950s, and released a jazz album in 1960. His career was cut short when a car accident in 1961 left him unable to perform

Born in Cowpens, South Carolina, Garland began playing guitar at the age of six. He appeared on local radio shows at 12 and was discovered at 14 at a South Carolina record store. He moved to Nashville at age 16, staying in Ma Upchurch's boarding house, where he roomed with Bob Moore and Dale Potter. At age 18, he recorded his million-selling hit "Sugarfoot Rag". He appeared on the Jubilee program with Grady Martin's band and on The Eddy Arnold Show. Here's one of his many singles. This one's from 1953.

                              

Garland is perhaps best known for his Nashville studio work with Elvis Presley from 1958 to 1961 which produced such rock hits as: "I Need Your Love Tonight", "A Big Hunk o' Love", " I'm Coming Home", "I Got Stung", "A Fool Such As I", "Stuck on You", "Little Sister", "(Marie's The Name) His Latest Flame", and "I Feel So Bad". 

He worked with many country music rock and roll musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s, such as Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Mel Tillis, Marty Robbins, The Everly Brothers, Boots Randolph, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, and Moon Mullican.

Garland's guitar drove such classic recordings as Little Jimmy Dickens' "I Got a Hole in My Pocket"; Benny Joy's "Bundle of Love" and "I'm Gonna Move"; Jimmy Loyd's (recorded under pseudonym of (Jimmie Logsdon) "You're Gone Baby" and "I've Got a Rocket in My Pocket"; Lefty Frizzell's "You're Humbuggin' Me"; Simon Crum's "Stand Up, Sit Down, Shut Your Mouth"; and Johnnie Strickland's (1935-1994) "She's Mine"; plus, seasonal staples "Jingle Bell Rock" with Bobby Helms, and Brenda Lee's seasonal "Rockin' Around the Christmas 

Tree". Don Gibson's "Sweet Sweet Girl" and "Don't Tell Me Your Troubles"; Patsy Cline's "Let the Teardrops Fall"; Ronnie Hawkins' "Jambalaya"; and Faron Young's "Alone with You" spotlighted Garland's guitar work.

He played with George Shearing and Charlie Parker in New York and went on to record Jazz Winds from a New Direction with Gary Burton on vibraphone, Joe Benjamin on double bass, and Joe Morello on drums. At the request of Gibson Guitar company president Ted McCarty, Garland and guitarist Billy Byrd influenced the design of the Byrdland guitar, which derived from the Gibson L-5, having a slimmer body and shorter scale for ease of playing.

Hank Garland's professional career spanned only 15 years, less than a third of his life. In 1961, at the age of 30, his dream of becoming "the best guitar player in the world" was shattered in a violent auto accident. His 1959 Chevy Nomad station wagon crashed near Springfield, Tennessee, throwing Garland from the car and leaving him in a coma for months. After lingering near death, he began to recover, but the price paid was devastatingly high. Severe brain damage claimed most of his motor functions and co-ordination, and his dreams of greater music to come seemed to have evaporated. He recovered with the help of his wife, Evelyn and two daughters,

The loss of ability to play would have sent most guitarists into a deep depression, but Hank decided to fight back. He practiced for two years after the accident, studying and working scales and arpeggios while fighting to regain control over his instrument. After two more years he'd gotten some of his command back, but not sufficiently to return to the studios. His advice to similarly afflicted guitarists is succinct: "Don't give up".

This wasn't the-end of the Hank Garland legend. It would be two, years after the accident until he regained any command of the instrument, and 13 more before he returned to Nashville for a brief appearance at the 1976 Fan Fair Reunion Show - where his rendition of his 1949 composition "Sugarfoot Rag" left moist eyes among performers and audience members. 

They could see and hear that while Hank Garland might not be returning to the Nashville studios, he had certainly returned from one of the most uncertain and harrowing journeys any musician could ever make.

Sadly the second half of his life was spent in obscurity and dogged by ill-health. He spent his final years battling record companies for royalties.

Hank Garland did live a long life, though, dying in 2004 of a staph infection at Orange Park Medical Centre, at the age of 74, according to his brother, Billy Garland.

 (Edited from Wikipedia & Wayback Machine)