Bottleneck Blues Band

Rich Landar 

Keyboards and Vocals

Rich is originally from New York, where he began playing professionally at the age of fifteen. In the early 80’s, Rich was a mainstay of the New York City rockabilly scene centered around the notorious Bowery club CBGBs, with his band The Roustabouts. During this period Rich occasionally performed with Brian Setzer (Stray Cats) Liberty Devito, and Tommy Burns from Billy Joel’s band and opened for The B52’s, The Blasters, Garry US Bonds and many others. 

After relocating to Los Angeles he became an active part of that city’s music community, working as a session musician and eventually joining and touring nationally with the Bus Boys. During his time in LA, Rich got to jam with artists like Chaka Khan, Buddy Miles, Ainsley Dunbar, blues man Greg Wright and lots of others. 

Rich finally arrived in Portland, OR in 1993.

Early on he toured with Duffy Bishop, gigged with Midnight Blue and was an in demand keyboardist. He expanded his musical palette into bluegrass and became part of Portland’s roots music scene, playing mandolin with his band The Hillwilliams, who released their album “Hill Yeah” receiving airplay on over 35 domestic and international traditional and online radio stations. Rich eventually made a decision to focus more  on keyboard playing and joined the Bottleneck Blues Band in 2023. He also freelances with other artists both live and on recordings.