Roy Nichols
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Roy Ernest Nichols (October 21, 1932 – July 3, 2001) was an American
country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...
best known as the lead guitarist for
Merle Haggard Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Haggard was born in Oildale, California, toward the end of the Great Depression. His childhood was troubled a ...
's band The Strangers for more than two decades. He was known for his guitar technique, a mix of
fingerpicking Fingerstyle guitar is the technique of playing the guitar or bass guitar by plucking the strings directly with the fingertips, fingernails, or picks attached to fingers, as opposed to flatpicking (plucking individual notes with a single plectr ...
and
pedal steel The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can ...
-like bends, usually played on a Fender Telecaster electric guitar. Nichols is considered one of the founders of the country music subgenre the “Bakersfield Sound”, which includes such notable country artists as Haggard,
Buck Owens Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on ...
, and
Don Rich Donald Eugene Ulrich (August 15, 1941 – July 17, 1974), best known by the stage name Don Rich, was an American country musician who helped develop the Bakersfield sound in the early 1960s. He was a noted guitarist and fiddler, and a ...
.


Biography

Roy Ernest Nichols was born in
Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the ...
, to Bruce and Lucille Nichols, as the first born of seven children. The Nichols family moved to
Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, makin ...
, when he was two, where they owned a camp for migrant farm workers. Sometimes a traveling gypsy band would stay at the camp and the young Nichols would hide and watch them play. His father Bruce was also a musician, playing upright bass at local dances on the weekends in the San Joaquin Valley. Nichols was drawn to his father’s music. He learned some basic chords from his father and began playing in his father's band on the weekends when he was only 11. By age 14, Nichols began playing weekends with Curly Roberts and the Rangers; he earned $25 a week.


Career

Shortly before his 16th birthday, Nichols met Fred Maddox, of the
Maddox Brothers and Rose The Maddox Brothers and Rose were an American country music group active from the 1930s to 1950s, consisting of four brothers, Fred, Cal, Cliff, and Don Maddox, along with their sister Rose; Cliff died in 1949 and was replaced by brother Henry. Orig ...
, a colorful hillbilly band, who heard Nichols playing guitar on Fresno DJ Barney Lee's Saturday-morning radio program. Nichols, still only 16 years old, was earning $90, a considerable amount at the time. “He could play anything”, remembers Rose Maddox. “He was good at all of it. Every guitar picker in the country wanted to play like him, but none of them ever compared. He was one of a kind, but the music aside, he was like any 16-year-old kid - feisty, causing us trouble. But my mother brought him under.” At a Maddox show in Mesa, Arizona, a teenaged couple sat in the front row: Buck and Bonnie Campbell Owens, who found themselves fascinated with Nichols' playing. The Maddox Brothers toured out of state for extended periods, so Fred Maddox became Nichols' legal guardian while his brother, Henry Maddox, became the young musician's tutor. While in Las Vegas, although warned by Lula Maddox not to do so, Nichols began sneaking away to gamble, an activity that soon led to the guitarist being fired from the group. In his 18 months with the group, Nichols appeared on records for over 100 songs and played almost every evening. Returning to the valley, Nichols joined Smiley Maxidon on radio station KNGS in Hanford, California, where he performed for a regular one-hour live broadcast. Nichols stayed up all night playing dances several nights a week while still returning to the station to play his 7 am show. About a year later, the Texas-born, Bakersfield country music icon
Lefty Frizzell William Orville "Lefty" Frizzell (March 31, 1928 – July 19, 1975) was an American country music singer-songwriter and honky-tonk singer. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982. Frizzell released many songs that charted ...
hired the young guitarist, where future employer
Merle Haggard Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Haggard was born in Oildale, California, toward the end of the Great Depression. His childhood was troubled a ...
first saw Nichols play 1953 at the Rainbow Gardens. In 1954, Nichols returned to work for another year at the radio station with Maxidon. In 1955, Nichols joined Cousin Herb Henson's Trading Post Gang's TV show. For five days a week, this 45-minute live country music show was aired on station KERO in Bakersfield, California. Nichols remained there for 5 of the 11 years the show ran. He also played at the Foothill Club in Long Beach with Billy Mize and Cliff Crofford. He also toured with
Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
during that same time.The Bakersfield Californian
/ref> In 1960, Nichols joined
Wynn Stewart Winford Lindsey Stewart (June 7, 1934 – July 17, 1985), better known as Wynn Stewart, was an American country music performer. He was one of the progenitors of the Bakersfield sound. Although not a huge chart success, he was an inspiration t ...
in Las Vegas. Merle Haggard was the band's bass player, and this meeting was the beginning of a long collaboration.
Ralph Mooney Ralph Mooney (September 16, 1928 – March 20, 2011) was an American steel guitar player and was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1983. He was the original steel guitarist in Haggard's band, the Strangers. A native of Duncan, Okl ...
, who played steel guitar in Stewart's band, also later went on to play that instrument on several of Haggard's recordings along with
Norm Hamlet Norm Hamlet is an American steel guitarist and a member of Merle Haggard's The Strangers band for the past 49 years.Terry Downs: ''The Strangers'', http://www.terrydownsmusic.com/Archive/strangers_article.pdf, n.d., downloaded May 6, 2012.The Stee ...
. When asked about his experience with Nichols, Mooney explained, “Roy had a resophonic guitar…you know a dobro that he fretted. Nobody could tune it. Roy was so good with his left hand that he bent the strings in tune as he played depending on where he was on the neck.” When asked what it was like recording those sessions, he replied, "It was really a lot of fun!” On June 15, 1965, Nichols was hired straight out of Stewart's band by Haggard, and flew to Phoenix, Arizona, to join the singer on his first tour with his band The Strangers. Nichols was the first to be hired for Haggard's new band. While Stewart paid the young guitarist $250 a week, Haggard paid substantially less at $125 a week. Nichols gave three conditions for being hired by Haggard: "I don't drive, I carry my own amplifier, and I know where my bed is every night". Haggard, who said that Nichols, along with guitarist
Chet Atkins Chester Burton Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001), known as "Mr. Guitar" and "The Country Gentleman", was an American musician who, along with Owen Bradley and Bob Ferguson, helped create the Nashville sound, the country music s ...
, "Were the two most influential guitar players in
he last He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
century", was nothing but effusive when describing his association with Nichols. "Because of Roy, my career commenced", Haggard said. "He was the stylist that set the pace of the records I recorded in my high period." Over the next two decades, Merle Haggard and The Strangers had 38 hit songs with 33 in the top 10. During his 22 years with Haggard, Nichols wrote and published 19 of his own songs, one of which, “Street Singer”, was recorded by Haggard and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1970. Nichols continued to tour with Haggard in the United States and overseas with notable performances at
Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
,
Madison Square Gardens Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylva ...
, and the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
two times. The Academy of Country and Western Music honored Nichols with nominations for Guitarist of the Year several times, and The Strangers were voted Touring Band of the Year seven times.


Retirement

Nichols retired from the road in March 1987. He was later inducted into the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame in
Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...
. Nichols suffered a stroke in February 1996. Losing the use of his left hand as a result, Nichols was unfortunately no longer able to play guitar. Nichols was being treated for a nonlife-threatening infection at Mercy Hospital in
Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
, when he had a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
and died on July 3, 2001.Obituary Accessmylibrary.com - obituary
/ref> ---- ''This text was copied from the history section of the tablature book from "The Guitar Styles of Roy Nichols" instructional video, courtesy of Terry Downs at '' http://terrydownsmusic.com


References


External links

* http://www.bakersfield.com/static/FP/baksound/roy.htm * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li_Kpk_DDoE * The Guitar Styles of Roy Nichols https://vimeo.com/ondemand/terrydownsmusic {{DEFAULTSORT:Nichols, Roy 1932 births 2001 deaths People from Chandler, Arizona American country guitarists American male guitarists American country singer-songwriters 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from Arizona 20th-century American singers Country musicians from Arizona 20th-century American male musicians The Strangers (American band) members American male singer-songwriters Singer-songwriters from Arizona