Scott Laningham grew up mostly in the Amarillo area. He came to Austin around 1980 to attend the University of Texas earning a degree in Radio, Television and Film. Following his graduation, Laningham moved to New York City in the 1980s and joined by Mitch Watkins in 1984, began playing together in a group that had a memorable gig at storied New York Jazz club, Mikell’s, with Stevie Ray Vaughan sitting in. As it would turn out, Scott and Mitch would play together over a 40 year span. 

Following Scott’s time in NYC, he relocated to Boston where he worked for Christian Science Monitor Radio and met his wife, Elizabeth. Over the next two decades, they had eight children together. Eventually, the family resettled in Austin where Scott started working for IBM doing multi-media projects. Being pulled in so many directions with family, work and playing drums, he actually stopped playing drums for a period of time, but gigs at The Elephant Room with Watkins and others, as well as Elias Haslanger’s recruitment of him for Church on Monday drew Scott back into Austin’s music community. Other prominent Austin artists took notice, such as Alejandro Escovedo, who having attended many Church on Monday gigs, eventually hired Laningham to play drums in his touring band.

Along the way, bassist, John Fremgen, introduced Scott to Christopher Cross who brought Laningham into his touring band. When Cross and producer-engineer, Randy Miller, decided to form the local jazz super group, Freedonia, Scott was a natural choice to play drums and actually wrote the title track to the band’s 2019 album, “Firefly.”

Just a few days before Scott died, he posted two original songs to his Bandcamp site, “Holy Ground,” an instrumental featuring Watkins and George Strait violinist, Gene Elders, as well as “Carry On,” in which he sings and plays all the instrumentation. “Holy Ground” was inspired by the protests following the death of George Floyd while “Carry On” was inspired by the arrival of his grandchild in 2020, causing him to ponder new life coming into the world at the same time so many were losing loved ones.

Of Scott’s life, Mitch Watkins wrote, “His life as a loving father and family man was something that I rarely saw.” Scott spent quality time with his family on camping trips, gardening and playing in the yard. Says Mitch, “he prioritized such experiences as he pursued music and worked his day job. Any of those, family man, full-time IBM employee or in demand musician would have stretched a person of normal abilities to the max.”