Bio

“Down Louisiana at the Crawfish Inn
Cool your heels under a ceilin’ fan
Two for one gonna save a buck
Come on down you can try your luck”

Lanny Fiel 

Native of the High Plains, Lanny Fiel grew up in Lubbock, Texas, paying regular visits to country family from the backwoods around Natchitoches, Louisiana.    

Mid-60s he took to electric guitar, playing in local bands around West Texas.  During those formative years, a recording contract with RCA Records prompted a move to Nashville where he met Jimmy Buffett.  As sideman, Lanny played guitar on Jimmy’s first three albums, including, “Living and Dying in 3/4 Time” featuring hit single, “Come Monday.”

Admittedly, he wasn’t cut out for the emerging Country Rock scene in Music City and left Nashville, heading home to West Texas.  There he returned to study classical music at Texas Tech and went on to play violin and viola in Lubbock Symphony and surrounding orchestras. 

Country Music as a tradition though had left a deep impression.  Taking up fiddle, he met and began to learn from musicians who played the traditional Texas style.  As part of recording, transcribing, and documenting their works, he began passing the tradition on to youngsters.  The effort resulted in The Ranch Dance Fiddle Band, a twelve-piece group where kids from junior high through high school studied and performed the music of their own heritage.  Archive of recordings can be found on https://ranchdance.com

At the same time, Lanny began hosting a public radio program, Roots Music, on the campus at Texas Tech.  This led to recording cowboy singers and poets who performed in a traditional style particular to West Texas and New Mexico.  Touring across country he accompanied cowboy singers and fiddle masters to perform from the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas, to the Gene Autry Museum, Los Angeles, the Western Folklife Center, Elko, Nevada, and Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

 Today, Lanny is writing and producing original music along with an Audiobook to include narration, soundtrack, field recordings, and sound effects.  Bayou Texan: A Memoir of Known Facts recounts a tale across time that begins when he left Music City, Nashville, with a stopover to visit kinfolks in Louisiana.  

There, stories came to life where his grandfather, uncle and cousins found stone clues and strange objects in the Louisiana woods.  This led to a lifelong quest over generations in search of buried treasure.  Supposedly, a stash of gold had been left in the Kisatchie Forest by John A. Murrell, The Great Western Land Pirate of 1834, who once rode the Old Natchez Trace.  And incidentally, haunted the streets in Nashville where Lanny and Jimmy would one day play their guitars.  Story and songs can be found on https://bayoutexan.com