Ralph Lane: A guitar legend in the Eastern Adirondacks

A musical journey that begins with playing along to early 1960s country songs

Well after midnight, a time when little boys ought to be fast asleep, a young Ralph Lane was wide awake in Gloversville, tuning his am radio to WWVA, home of the Wheeling Jamboree, which back in the day was every inch what the Grand Ole Opry was to the genre of hillbilly and honkey tonk sounds that were the ancestors of today’s country music.

Lane’s parents, who had a talent for music and also a talent for occasionally letting their marital disputes play out onstage, gave him his first guitar at age 4. “From that day I never looked back, and I turned into a horrible guitar addict,” he said. 

Today Lane, 68, remains a hired gun for bands in need of an effervescent guitar picker, but he’s largely retired from a career as a stalwart in some of the nation’s top bluegrass bands, most recently playing at The Mill in Westport with Grammy nominee Bill Ellis.

Ralph Lane: From radio licks to Adirondack fame

Lane is a household name in the eastern Adirondacks’ surprisingly rich and accomplished musical circles. He might be less known in the rest of the park, but that’s just the way history worked out; if the North Country had become known for music instead of trees, Ralph Lane would have been Bob Marshall.

Lane’s parents taught him the chords, but for artistic inspiration he tuned in to hear the licks of Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed and Roy Clark over the airwaves of the 50,000-watt station which, well after dark when the atmospheric conditions were right, could be picked up hundreds of miles away.

As Lane entered elementary school, his music teacher knew one thing for sure: Lane was better than anyone the school had ever seen, student or adult, and he became the de facto leader of the class.

“Music class was basically me playing guitar, and other kids playing on tambourines, drums, stuff like that,” he said.

Learning songs from the radio was hard, because they might never be played on-air again. Things were marginally better when the country-variety television show Hee Haw made its debut. Despite its hayseed veneer, it featured some serious guitar work, particularly from co-host Roy Clark. Lane would pick up what he could the first time around and then “wait six months for the reruns.”

Watch Ralph Lane demonstrate three classic guitars in the above video filmed by Eric Teed at 22 Pawn in Essex.

From his parents he also learned guitar repair, partly because there wasn’t money, partly because they were hard on instruments, which sometimes bore the brunt of the marital squabbles.

When his parents divorced, Lane moved with his mother to Crown Point, and he began to join local and touring bands, including the Mardi Gras bluegrass band out of Keeseville, which performed across Europe for the troops after being auditioned by the Department of Defense.

Playing classic guitars

In late winter, Lane dropped by 22 Pawn, an Essex guitar venue/studio/museum that will be featured in the May/June edition of Adirondack Explorer magazine (click here to subscribe).

He had been recruited to take three musically and historically significant guitars for a spin: a ’69 Fender Telecaster, whose bright twang was the backbone of 20th-century country gold; the  high-octane Gibson Les Paul, descendant of the famed Goldtop, a blues/rock go-to instrument for the likes of Keith Richards and Eric Clapton; and a Kay Barney Kessel, named for a member of the acclaimed Los Angeles session musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. 

Lane can make each of them sing, as he did while touring and putting out CDs with Mardi Gras and Ray Edwards. 

“Ray Edwards was an East Coast opening act for all of the major country western stars at the time, like Neal McCoy and Tim McGraw,” Lane said. “We put out two albums, two CDs, and Mardi Gras put out three different CDs — the last one, I call it my million seller, because I have about a million of them in the cellar.”

That notwithstanding, when Lane does venture out to play, musicians can sense it like a deer senses hunting season. As Lane produced his fiery licks on the three guitars, people who just happened to be in the neighborhood started to drop by to hear an Adirondack legend.

So, too, do younger players watch and listen to his art, soaking in his mastery, just as Lane himself would put an ear to his radio many years ago.

But on this day the sound was not coming out of a tinny speaker from a state hundreds of miles away; it was there to hear for anyone who happened to be lucky enough to stumble upon 22 Pawn. 

Photo at top: Ralph Lane, multi-instrumentalist and luthier from Crown Point, playing a 1959 Kay Barney Kessel, named after the American jazz guitarist, at 22 Pawn in Essex. He has borrowed this guitar from the owner for recent performances and said that he would “buy it in in heartbeat if it was for sale.” Photo by Eric Teed

More to Explore

Check out a feature about Pawn 22 in Essex, in the May/June issue of Adirondack Explorer magazine.

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Pictured here (L-R): A 1974 Fender Stratocaster showing authentic road wear, indicating it has been played thousands of hours; c1999 Jay Turser which was Tom Sherman’s first guitar; modern U.S.-made Gibson SG in Burgundy, at 22 Pawn in Essex. Photo by Eric Teed