About Rich

               Richard Lanahan was born in New York City. He grew up on Long Island and currently lives in Babylon. In addition to being a solo performer Richard has played lead guitar for various Alt-country bands and songwriters. Richard played lead guitar for Fourteen Feet and The WellDiggers, collaborating with songwriter Steve Welner on three studio albums. Together they produced a twangy folk-rock sound more readily heard south of the Mason-Dixon Line. As a soloist and with these bands Rich has been performing at numerous clubs and festivals on Long Island, upstate and occasionally in NYC on a regular basis since 2004.

               Richard plays mainly folk rock and country style guitar. He began playing guitar at the age of 12 and picked it up and put it down intermittently during his teenage years and through his 20's. He was always a fan of bands and artists that could be characterized today as Americana, a term that describes music that is an amalgam of folk, country, rock, and blues played with attention to maintaining a roots like element. He is especially fond of the seminal American bands The Byrds and The Buffalo Springfield as well as songwriters Rodney Crowell and John David Souther.                                                                                                                                                                                         In 1978, in the wake of some critical lifestyle changes,  Richard began to focus extensively on country style music, having been influenced primarily by the eclectic mixes that Emmylou Harris mined in her quest to bring great songs to her recordings. He learned to play the Telecaster (as have many others) listening to Merle Haggard records through the 1980s.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             He has a day job as a site development and landscape manager for a  residential building company on Long Island's North Shore. This involves the design and installation of landscapes  to complement  the luxury home construction.                                                     
               Having worked and performed with many accomplished songwriters beginning in 2004 (Doug Kwartler, Mike 'Hombre' Meehan, Steve Welner, Toby Tobias, Steve Robinson, and more recently Katie Pearlman and Pete Mancini) he began penning his own tunes in 2010.  Richard has produced and recorded his first solo record 'Dreamers Witness' with the help of some friends. It was released in 2015. He anticipates performing these songs (on Dreamers Witness) as well as other new ones in support of this record. Check out the shows page to see where you can find him.

               Richard anticipates working on a new record to be released late in 2017. He is currently sorting through the songs he has written in the last two years. Stay tuned!