Gill Landry
| Gill Landry | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Born | Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States |
| Genres | Bluegrass, Progressive bluegrass |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Guitar, Banjo, Steel guitar, Resonator guitar, Vocals |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Associated acts | The Felice Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Kitchen Syncopators |
| Website | http://www.gilllandrymusic.com |
Gill Landry, also known by the stage name of Frank Lemon, is a singer/songwriter and guitarist born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and a former member of Old Crow Medicine Show. A founding member of The Kitchen Syncopators, he currently opens for a number of acts. In March 2015 he released his third album as a solo artist.
He got his first guitar when he was 5. Landry started The Kitchen Syncopators with his friend Woody Pines in 1998 spending many years busking the streets of New Orleans, the Northwest, and Europe. As he tells the story:
"The Kitchen Syncopators came out of a Vaudeville show that Me, Felix Hatfield, Woody Pines, and Huck Notari were doing called The Songsters. It was a Bread and Puppet—inspired cardboard theater which featured a lot of early American music we were picking up off of our friend Baby Gramps. We'd been starving in shacks in Eugene, Oregon, when me and Woody went to the Oregon Country Fair one day to try busking. I think we made $300 bucks that day, which to us was a fortune at the time."
The Kitchen Syncopators recorded several self-released albums and disbanded in 2004 when Gill began to lend vocals and play banjo and steel guitar for Old Crow Medicine Show. When Old Crow co-founder Chris "Critter" Fuqua "went on hiatus" from the group in 2007 to pursue "recovery from a longtime alcohol addiction", the group looked for a suitable replacement, finding it in Gill Landry, whom they'd first encountered in New Orleans in 2000, where they were "both busking over Mardi Gras." As Landry tells the story:
Our mutual friend, Sam Parton, suggested I give Ketch a call. So, I did, and he...asked me how my clawhammer and dobro playing was, and I said it was rusty but good. I didn't even own a banjo at the time and hadn't heard of clawhammer before. I was a guitar player."
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