Tom Landry was born in Lafayette, Louisiana.
He lived there till the age of five when his dad Shelby and mom Josephine and younger sister Donna moved to San Jose, CA.
Tom "The Hawk" Landry
Tom Landry began playing the accordion at the age five.
And continued formal music education until he was 14 years of age. His teacher was Dan Sinigiani.
A multifaceted musician, at seven years old he began teaching himself guitar, as well as learning clarinet. He then later switched to alto saxophone on thru college. At age sixteen Tom was asked to join the teaching staff at Milpitas Music where he taught guitar, eventually self authoring his own guitar method.
Tom’s guitar tenure as teacher would last a twenty year span, which at one point carried a sixty to seventy student roster a week.
Tom was so inspired by Jimmy Page that upon arriving at San Jose City College, he asked his Jazz band instructor Dave Eshelman, how does one go about becoming a studio musician?
The answer he received was to acquire a teacher or two. So at age nineteen he began what would become a ten year period of Jazz and Classical studies on guitar with two formidable masters; the late, great jazz music educator Warren Nunes and “ Segovia Schooled” Barohme Behroozie . Although it took eleven years and two hundred forty four credit units, Tom eventually received his AA degree in music. He played in seven honor recitals in various chamber music ensembles, with seven semesters of Jazz band on guitar and two semesters of Jazz band on bass.
In nineteen seventy nine at twenty three, Tom Landry entered the “San Jose Invitational” battle of the bands as a three piece with four months of rehearsals and won. Two years later in nineteen eighty one Tom again won, also winning an award along side his drummer ‘Joe Santoro” for best guitarist and best drummer respectively.
In 1984 Tom moved to Los Angeles and received his music degree while doing a brief stint as second guitarist for the rock star “Lita Ford”.
At the same time, he expanded his musical horizons playing in two Celtic bands; “The Rogues” and “Emerald”, taking up the mandolin and acoustic guitar.
Tom also played in various country bands including employment with the house band for the “Saddle Rack”. He bought a pedal steel at this time and teamed up with Robert Brandon to form an all-original band called the Brandon/Landry band.
