Danny Patton grew up in the Black Oak neighborhood of Gary,
Indiana, and
played the local club circuit for years. An amazing
guitarist and superb banjo player, the 41-year-old Patton first
became well known to Northwest Indiana music fans in the
mid-1980s when he was hired to play guitar with the Hazzard
County Band.
"We hired Danny when he was just 17 years old and he played with
us for about 12 years," recalled Hazzard County Band
founder/steel guitarist, Nelson Wynn. "He was an amazing young
player at the time and he just got better and better."
After his Hazzard County years, Patton hooked up for a spell
with two other popular country/country-rock groups, The Stony
Creek Band and Virgil Kane, before eventually putting together
his own bluegrass group, Flintlock.
"Danny put Flintlock together with his brother Jamie Patton,"
recalled Wynn, who also owns Broadway Music in Merrillville.
"Danny played five-string banjo in that band along with guitar.
Jamie, who lives in Highland and still plays with the current
line-up of Flintlock, played mandolin and guitar."
Patton later went on to bend his strings on stage for two years
during the late 1990s with the Born To Boogie Band, fronted by
country music radio station US99's Big John Howell.
A dyed-in-the-wool country picker, Patton realized a personal
dream when he relocated to Nashville six years ago and hooked up
with the veteran country music star Billy Walker.
"Billy Walker had a string of country hits long before Elvis
came along and had been a card carrying member of the Grand Ole
Opry for more than 40-years," noted Wynn. In recent years The
Billy Walker Band had become something of a ‘house band' on the
Grand Ole Opry which gave Danny Patton the opportunity to play
his guitar proudly on the Opry stage each week while broadcast
over the venerable airwaves of WSM-AM radio.
* datails from Tom Lounges, The Times
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Danny Patton is survived by his three children Amie, Daniel Jr.
and Bradley of Northwest Indiana (and their mother Tina Garver);
his mother Cheryl Holstein and younger brother Joey Patton of
Glendale, Ariz.; older brother Jamie (Ann) Patton of Highland;
fiancée Teryl Peterson of Nashville; many nephews, nieces,
cousins; and a wealth of friends and fans.
