Hank Harris

Hank Harris is a Rapid City singer-songwriter, guitarist and photographer whose South Dakota music career reaches back to the 1970s. Over the years he has worked in everything from solo and duo settings to country-swing bands, R&B groups and large horn ensembles, including Red Willow Band, DD and the Fayrohs, R&B Supply, The Shades and Hank & Christy.

Songwriting has remained the common thread. Harris began releasing his own records with World Beat Cowboy and has continued steadily, moving through folk, rock, country, western swing, blues, reggae and other influences rather than settling into a single genre. His tenth solo album, Hank Harris 2.0, was released in 2026.

Some of Harris’s most distinctly Black Hills work has happened away from the conventional singer-songwriter path. Working with the Adams Museum, he researched the music heard in early Deadwood and turned that research into two Deadwood Songbook recordings featuring musicians including Kenny Putnam, Ricky Jacobsen, Jimmy Goings and others. The project was later filmed as an SDPB television special.

Harris has also composed music for South Dakota public television documentaries, produced Christy Lee Anderson’s album Awakening, participated for years in the South Dakota Arts Council Touring Artist program, and maintained a parallel practice as a photographer. Through all of those projects, he has remained an active performer and songwriter in the Black Hills.