Rick Landers

I was born in Michigan, downriver of Detroit and soon found myself on the road with our nomadic family moving from one Navy base to another. By the time I was ten I'd travelled to most of the States. We lived in trailer parks, a Navy-owned row house, even half of a WWII Quonset hut, as well a small basement apartment we called, "The Dungeon".

As a kid, I sang on a local radio station and found early rock 'n' roll and pop music fascinating, and I'd sing along. Later, as a young teen I'd learn guitar and join a garage band in the Detroit area. We once snuck into Cobo Hall to see Terry Knight and the Pack and I'd frequent Detroit's old Grande Ballroom and other venues to see Cream, The Frost, Savage Grace, Vanilla Fudge, Del Shannon, the Psychedelic Stooges, Bob Seger, the MC5, the Blues Magoos and other remarkable groups. 

During college in Michigan and England I'd poke around by myself on my own or a borrowed acoustic, then later busk in the D.C. area of Georgetown, and played a few D.C. clubs in the Adams Morgan area. Once married, I settled into playing for my wife, cats, and dogs.

Occasionally, I'd write a song. 

Living in Virginia, I worked a regular federal government job where I started out stuffing envelopes as a wage grade employee (WG-02), and retired as a strategic planner, ethics program manager, senior business analyst, and communications executive (GS-15).  

In 2018, ten years after retiring, I played an open mic as a singer-songwriter and was asked to be the venue's first open mic featured performer. Since then I've played house concerts,  farmers' markets, festivals and special events, such as the Republic of South Africa embassy (D.C.), four holiday gigs for The Reston Town Center, the Herndon Festival, Reston's Founder's Day, the W&OD Trail Family Festival, and more. 

I have also published Guitar International magazine (2005 - 2021), where I interviewed  such luminaries as: Les Paul, Jimmy Webb, Slash, Judy Collins, Buddy Guy, Tommy Emmanuel, Richie Havens, Cindy Cashdollar, all the members of The Immediate Family (Sklar, Kunkel, Wachtel, Kortchmar & Postell) and many, many more.  Friends and contributors also weighed in to interview legends of the music of our day. 

Most recently, I was asked to serve as a  judge in the world-wide 2021 Songwriters' Association of Washington (SAW) songwriters' contest where I  judged in the Country and Contemporary Folk categories.

I tend to favor musicians we all know, but also lesser known artists, such as Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, Judee Sill, John Martyn, Rob Thomas, Father John Misty, Roy Harper, Jimmie Spheeris and more. 

Five new scratch tracks were recently added to the Tracks & Info, below:  "Maria," "Red," "Leviathan," London After Michigan," and "Angel on the Wing". More scratch tracks will be added soon.

Two of the array of tracks  below were studio recordings - one with me on vocal, the other with Loretta Lynn's backup singer, Mike Lusk. All others are iPhone or basement recordings; all awaiting studio production. 

On August 16, 2021, I was honored to front and debut with a fine group of players to add some great accompaniment.  They are: Ron Goad (percussion), Jim Nagle (dobro/guitar), and John Werntz (stand up bass).  

Recently, I was invited to be a featured singer-songwriter at Waynesboro, Pennsylvania's Original Songs town event - October 9th! 

Thanks for listening!

Rick