Buddy Davis

Davis was a seventh-generation descendant of Madison County’s settlers. As a child he begged his parents for a guitar and, once he had one, learned to play by watching Lester Flatt’s fingers when Flatt and Scruggs appeared on television. At fourteen he was hired as a bass player and learned the instrument as he went along.

During the 1980s he worked as a railroad police officer and spent seven years in the Southern Lawmen, a band sponsored by the Norfolk Southern railroad. He appeared on country music television many times, including with Roy Clark on Hee Haw, and had a long run as co-producer of Fire on the Mountain, David Holt’s series on the Nashville Network, which ran from 1984 to 1987.

He played bass for a time in Doc Watson’s band and recorded extensively: with Doc and Merle Watson on Down South (Sugar Hill, 1984), with the Madison County ballad singer Lena Jean Ray, with the Marc Pruett Band, and with Doc and Merle Watson and Jerry Douglas on David Holt’s album Reel and Rock. His music took in classic country, bluegrass and old-time styles. He played in the Bailey Mountain Trio with his fellow Madison County native Roger Howell, fronted his own band, and performed at major folk festivals with his daughters and granddaughter.

Davis received the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Award in 2000 for his contributions to traditional music. He died on 26 February 2023, at the age of seventy-four.