Lee Roy Parnell is part of a long line of Texas roots-music eclectics and is among the elite few who can be identified as a triple threat: an ace guitarist as well as a distinctive singer and hit songwriter. His music runs the gamut of diversity: blue-eyed soul, Deltablues, road house rock, Southern boogie, Texas swing, and gospel defying conventional classification. He draws from a broad range of music sources and combines them with seamless dexterity and, unlike many other hard-to-pigeonhole artists, Parnell has enjoyed a run of success on the country charts.
Parnell was born in Abilene, TX, on December 21, 1956, and grew up on his parents' ranch; his father had toured with a teenage Bob Wills in traveling medicine shows, and Lee Roy's first public performance came on Wills' radio show at age six. As a teenager, he played drums in a local band and soon picked up guitar as well, eventually concentrating on slide playing. He joined Kinky Friedman's Texas Jewboys in his late teens and moved to Austin in 1974 to join the city's budding music scene. Parnell spent over a decade playing clubs in Austin, Houston, and Dallas/Fort Worth, and New York while honing his style and songwriting.