Our Arklahoma Heritage: "The Greatest Unknown Guitarist in the World" was born in Ozark in 1939
- Dennis McCaslin
- May 15, 2025
- 3 min read
Leroy (Roy) Buchanan was a pioneering guitarist whose innovative style earned him the title "The Greatest Unknown Guitarist in the World" in a 1971 WNET documentary. Blending blues, country, jazz, and rock, Buchanan created a distinctive sound over a career spanning more than three decades.
Born on September 23, 1939, in Ozark, he was the third of four children of Bill Buchanan and Minnie Bell Reed Buchanan. At age two, his family relocated to Pixley, California, a small farming town in the San Joaquin Valley, where his father worked as a farm laborer.
Buchanan began learning guitar chords at five, and by nine, his father gifted him a red Rickenbacker lap steel guitar. At twelve, he joined the Wawkeen Valley Boys, playing lap steel, and soon mastered the standard guitar by mimicking radio hits.
Buchanan’s iconic 1953 Fender Telecaster, nicknamed "Nancy," became synonymous with his signature trebly tone, though he experimented with various guitars throughout his career. As a teenager, he formed the Dusty Valley Boys, performing in local honky-tonks. At sixteen, he left home for Los Angeles to pursue music professionally.
In Los Angeles, agent Bill Orwig recruited Buchanan for the Heartbeats, a band featured in the 1956 film Rock, Pretty Baby. When Orwig abandoned the group in Oklahoma City, Buchanan joined Oklahoma Bandstand as a staff guitarist.
There, rocker Dale Hawkins hired him, and Buchanan toured with him for three years, debuting on record with Hawkins’s 1958 hit "My Babe." In 1961, Hawkins’s cousin Ronnie Hawkins recruited Buchanan for his band, the Hawks, which later evolved into The Band.
In 1961,
Buchanan married Judy Owens and settled in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, DC, where they raised seven children.
During the 1960s, he played with local acts like the Snakestretchers and reportedly declined an offer to join the Rolling Stones, preferring DC’s club scene.
His profile rose after the 1971 documentary, leading to a contract with Polydor Records. In 1972, he released Roy Buchanan and Second Album, both critically acclaimed but commercially modest. He recorded three more albums for Polydor and three for Atlantic Records through the 1970s.
After a recording hiatus from 1978 to 1985, Buchanan signed with Alligator Records, releasing When a Guitar Plays the Blues in 1985.
The album, his biggest success, charted for fifteen weeks on Billboard and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Blues Album.
He followed with Dancing on the Edge (1986), which won a College Media Journal Award for Best Blues Album, and Hot Wires in 1987.
Despite influencing guitarists like Jeff Beck, Danny Gatton, and Robbie Robertson, Buchanan never achieved mainstream fame.
His work appeared in posthumous releases, including American Axe: Live in 1974 (Powerhouse Records), 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection (Polydor), Deluxe Edition (Alligator), and Guitar on Fire: The Atlantic Sessions (Atlantic).
Recent compilations, such as The Genius of the Guitar: His Early Recordings (Jasmine Records, 2020), highlight his early work with Dale and Ronnie Hawkins.
Buchanan struggled with alcohol and substance abuse, which worsened over time. On August 14, 1988, following a domestic disturbance at his Reston, Virginia, home, his wife called the police, and he was arrested for public intoxication.
That night, he was found dead in his jail cell, officially ruled a suicide by hanging. However, speculation persists about the circumstances, with some, including bandmate Charlie Daniels, suggesting foul play, though no definitive evidence supports this;
He was buried three days later in Columbia Gardens Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
