Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Buddy Pendleton: Delivers

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“Say Mister, What’s Your Name?”
At the eastern end of the Crooked Road lies Ferrum College’s Blue Ridge Institute.  Among their folk music archives is a scratchy 1970s recording of a bluegrass jam session at the Pulaski, Virginia Fiddler’s Convention.  On it, a fiddler walks up with case in hand and asks if he can join in.  After being invited to join, he gets his fiddle out and runs, no, blazes through a warm up scale – three octaves worth!  Instantly, all present sense something extraordinary is about to happen.  And it does, as the fiddler leads the group on a mad dash through a jaw-dropping rendition of Soldiers Joy, Liberty and Golden Slippers.  When it’s over, someone from the thoroughly stunned group says, “Say, Mister, what’s your name?”  “Pendleton, Buddy Pendleton” comes the reply in a modest unassuming tone.

Thirty years later, Buddy Pendleton is still one of the most remarkable fiddlers the southern Appalachian region has ever produced.  Fluid, extremely tasteful and innovative, Buddy’s fiddling has set a standard that has seldom been matched.  In fact, it was never matched at the World Championship Union Grove Fiddler’s contest, which he won an unprecedented five consecutive times against accomplished fiddlers from all over the United States.  A little closer to home, Buddy has also won the Galax Fiddlers Convention twice, and came in second place several times, including once after a nearly thirty year absence!

It was at Union Grove in 1960 that Buddy met and played with the Greenbriar Boys, a popular New York group of bluegrass crazed musicians who recognized Buddy’s talents.  Out of the music they shared at Union Grove came an invitation to record and perform with the band all over the northeast, including performances with folk icon Joan Baez.  When Ralph Rinzler, the Greenbriar Boys’ mandolinist later became Bill Monroe’s manager, he offered Buddy the ultimate opportunity for a bluegrass fiddler – a chance to play for Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys.  Performing with Monroe and bandmates Del McCoury and Bill Keith was no doubt exhilarating, but Buddy’s tenure with Monroe would last only a few months, mostly due to Buddy’s dislike for the traveling life of a touring musician.  Buddy left the band and returned home to Patrick County, where he remains to this day, faithfully carrying the mail for the U.S. Postal Service.  Over the years numerous bands have vied for Buddy’s services, and he has performed and recorded with a large list of outstanding bands and musicians including the Lost and Found, Olen and Frances Gardner, Mayo River Boys, B.G. Express, Bluegrass Partners, Larry Richardson and Red Barker, Troy Brammer and the Virginia Partners, Buddy Pendleton and the Dixie Gentlemen, Raymond Fairchild and the Crow Brothers, Johnny & Jeanette Williams and Clearwater, Wayne Henderson, and the Highlanders. 

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