Larry Keel is an award-winning, innovative flat picking guitarist and singer/songwriter hailing from Appalachia and currently residing in historic Lexington, VA. Raised in a musical family steeped in the mountain culture of the region, Keel began from an early age to forge a distinctive sound, taking bluegrass and classic country music and infusing those styles with a rock edge and elements of improvisational jazz.

With the acoustic guitar Keel has brought the flat-picking form to its highest level of sophistication and sonic power, delivered by his muscular yet refined style of playing. As a songwriter with a catalog of nearly 100 original compositions, Keel integrates raw honesty and charming grit to create songs filled with reality, imagination, imagery and mood. He has appeared on over 20 albums, 12 of which he produced, and has written songs that have been recorded and performed by distinguished artists including Grammy-award winners Del McCoury and The Infamous Stringdusters. 

Keel is on a roll for 2025, with a new single release planned every few months starting in January, as well as an early summer EP drop. Learn more about four of Keel’s current projects:

Larry Keel Experience
Larry Keel’s Electric Larry Land
Keel Duo: Larry Keel & Jared Pool
Larry Keel & Jon Stickley Duo

“Larry Keel is a triple threat....songwriter, guitar player, entertainer. He can do it all. I think what makes Larry so powerful is that he has lived his songs, he's not sitting in a room trying to write the hit of the week, he's writing what's in his heart and on his mind.”
—Del McCoury

Larry Keel rings flat-picking to its highest level of sophistication and sonic power in a progressive bluegrass, alt-country, and americana experience. He has performed at some of the greatest venues including Tokyo Disney, Carnegie Hall, Town Hall NYC, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, LOCKN, High Sierra Music, Bonnaroo, Del Fest, Hullaween, and countless more.

Keel has inspired and merged creative forces with some of the greatest artists in modern roots music such as Tyler Childers, Billy Strings, Greensky Bluegrass, Keller Williams, Tony Rice and Sam Bush, to name a few. Revered by critics at Relix, JamBase, Bluegrass Today, No Depression, AXS, and Rolling Stone, he’s been dubbed “one of the finest flat pickers around” and described his unparalleled live performance as “taking songs up a notch with psychedelic hillbilly shredding.”

C-ville Weekly claims “Keel is doing for bluegrass what Hendrix did for rock, what Miles did for jazz—exploring the uncharted possibilities, defying the limitations of a deeply established musical form.”

Electric Larry Land presents Keel’s simultaneously gritty and suave original music applied to an electric format, creating what he calls a “sonic groove-and-vibe machine.” With this unit, Keel gives rein to his innate drive to expand his songs and playing style with this high-powered, highly creative and highly accomplished four-piece band comprised of electric guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. It’s dynamic Acoustic Rock at its finest.

Keel and “Electric Larry Land” are in full production mode on a new recording, with an EP set for release in 2025.

"The Keel Duo: Larry Keel & Jared Pool," consisting of Keel on acoustic guitar and Pool on mandolin and acoustic guitar, are masters of their instruments and deeply soulful singers, drawing heavily from Keel’s catalog of original music and imaginative interpretations of choice covers. 

A fellow Virginian, Pool has been studying Keel’s style since he was a very young prodigy, going on to win contests and competitions in flatpicking guitar, receiving a college degree in music, playing in successful touring acts and landing with the ‘Larry Keel Experience’ band around 2016. Pool’s skillful adaptability in supporting Keel’s distinctive sound has enriched the music and inspired and challenged Keel’s own playing along the way. It’s no wonder these artists know each other’s styles and idiosyncrasies so thoroughly enabling them to go on exhilarating musical explorations in the moment, no matter what material they choose. 

One listener likened the experience of watching this act to being backstage while the artists are running tunes, relaxed yet energized, nailing songs while taking musical risks and letting it all hang out. That’s the vibe they bring to the stage, inviting listeners to have fun and be part of the creative process happening before their very eyes and ears.

The Larry Keel & Jon Stickley Duo features two of the finest flatpicking guitarists of this generation. Both share a lifelong love of acoustic bluegrass guitar music made famous by influential duets Doc and Merle Watson, and Tony Rice and Norman Blake. Keel, Stickley, and other modern flatpickers like Billy Strings grew up studying these legends. These masters were the role models who provided the inspiration to both Larry and Jon to pursue careers as professional guitar players. Each has gone on to pioneer his own distinct interpretation of the bluegrass artform, as well as fusing genres from roots, jazz, prog, and beyond.

Now, Keel and Stickley have themselves become new masters of acoustic guitar. With this act, the two celebrate the pure joy of playing acoustic guitar music as a duo, effortlessly complementing each other’s rhythm and lead playing while never losing their own individual personality. Their sophisticated and awe-inspiring performances suit an array of venues including festival stages, listening rooms, private functions, and nightclubs. At the core of the Keel Stickley Duo is an intimate conversation between two guitars and voices, done with superior skill and taste, with more than a hint of explosive late-night jam vibe.