Born Ivan Leroy Wiggins in Nashville, Little Roy idolized Burt Hutcherson and was playing steel guitar at the Grand Ole Opry by the time he was thirteen, with Paul Howard’s Arkansas Cotton Pickers.
Eddy Arnold, arguably country music’s #1 guy in the late ’40s, hired him to be his steel man. It was a collaboration that would last twenty-five years.
He also got a chance to record three instrumental albums with Starday, including an album of his beloved Hawaiian Music, The Fabulous Steel Guitar Artistry Of Little Roy Wiggins.
He took that artistry with him overseas for a tour of the U.K. club circuit in 1978. Seven years later, he was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri.
Although he suffered from diabetes and heart disease, he continued to play steel guitar conventions until his death in 1999. A Morrell 8-String Lap Steel bears his name.
Kayton Roberts and Little Roy Wiggins recordings
Release Me (Eddie Miller/W.S. Stevenson/Dub Williams/Robert Yount)
Twin Steel Boogie
Arrangers
Kayton Roberts
R.M. Stone
Little Roy Wiggins
Sources:
- http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/wiggins.html
- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19990831/ai_n14240245
- http://reviews.harmonycentral.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Morrell/MLRW8+Little+Roy+Wiggins+8String+Lap+Steel/10/1
- http://perso.orange.fr/rockin.paul/Roy%20Wiggins%20at%20Starday.htm