Remembering Buddy Griffin (1948-2025)

By Laiken Blankenship

West Virginia lost a musical legend in February. Buddy Griffin was beloved wherever he went not only for his impeccable musicianship but his kindness, sense of humor, and humility. As someone who knew him personally, and learned from him for many years, I can attest to the truth of that statement. While he frequently performed and recorded with headliners of traditional bluegrass music, he never lost touch with his roots.

Born in Nicholas County in 1948, Buddy was blessed with a musical family and grew up surrounded by the songs of The Carter Family, old-time, and traditional bluegrass. He told me once that some of his earliest memories of music were crawling up beside a bass fiddle at the age of five or six to pluck on the strings while the family played together. He was truly raised in it. He noted that none of the kids were ever forced to pick up an instrument to learn, but rather learned them out of the desire to join in with the family pastimes. He was one of eight children. His parents, Erma and Richard, loved the songs of the Original Carter Family, and Buddy would often accompany them in the family band. Music was a natural part of their home life as Buddy shared in a 2011 GOLDENSEAL article saying, “Everything I do came from them…While all of us kids played in the yard, they’d sit there and play [music]. That sticks out [in my mind] like sunlight. I remember that very well.”

An accomplished musician, he could play almost any instrument but was probably best known for his skill on fiddle and banjo. In 1971 he graduated from Glenville State College and taught several years at a junior high school level. He performed for many years as a staff musician on the WWVA’s Jamboree USA starting in 1973. He performed on the Grand Ole Opry over 200 times and performed at such venues as the Kennedy Center, and Prairie Home Companion. He often performed with other bluegrass legends like Jim & Jesse McReynolds, Bobby Osbourne, the Goins Brothers, and Mac Wiseman. Most recently he performed often with the Mack Samples Band. He was a highly recommended musician, even recording the banjo tracks for the Disney animated film The Fox and the Hound 2 in 2004. Buddy played on over 150 recordings as a session musician and was talented in audio/studio production as well. He was not afraid of travel, as most musicians are familiar, and regularly drove through the night from one gig to the next in order to be there to perform. He was a legend in his own right, sharing some of the smoothest fiddling you could have ever heard. He was known for his tremendous back-up work and twin fiddling. 

Though he often traveled to perform, he also felt a strong pull towards education and would return to teaching on and off over the years. The early 2000s found him returned to Braxton County to care for his aging parents, but also to teach at Glenville State College. There he helped to found the world’s first accredited four-year degree in traditional bluegrass music, an accomplishment he took great pride in. In 2011, Buddy received our state’s highest folklife honor, the Vandalia Award; In 2019, he received an honorary Doctor Of Fine Arts from Glenville State College; in 2023 he was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.

Read more about Buddy’s life and love of music in “There Was Always Music: Buddy Griffin, Vandalia Award Recipient” from our Fall 2011 issue of GOLDENSEAL. You can also find the article he authored for GOLDENSEAL “The Legend of the Flatwoods Monster” Fall 2002. 

Anyone who met Buddy can tell you how much he loved music and West Virginia. To say he will be greatly missed is a vast understatement. I will forever be grateful for the lessons I learned from him, both of life and the fiddle. I just know he is keeping to the sunny side of heaven, once again accompanying his parents on those old Carter Family songs.