FITE, BUDDY

Homebase: Oregon / Snohomish County, WA.
Stats: 1938-2001
Misc Notes: Buddy Fite was a truly gifted musician, who’d begun with a ukulele at age six, and by age ten was playing steel guitar at grange hall dances with a six-piece country band. Two years later he was gigging all around Oregon with Claire Musser and the Powder River Ramblers. “We’d all go in his little bus to play out of town jobs. It was a country band, Western Swing, kind of like Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.” (Hylton). By age fourteen Fite was developing a jazz-inflected style while playing Friday and Saturday nights with the Western Wranglers at Tiny Dumont’s Park – and it was there that perhaps those jazzy stylings seemingly rubbed off a little bit on Nelson. Then Fite ended up playing on Shreveport, Louisiana’s fabled KWKH radio show, Louisiana Hayride. Back in Portland at age 16, Fite was now playing standard guitars at a country music joint, The Grove. Very versatile, Fite was playing jazz at Portland’s Cotton Club when he met bigtime vocal group, the Ink Spots, who then recommended him to the great R&B combo, Billy Ward and the Dominoes. After an audition in Chicago, Fite joined that group whose backing combo included the famous jazz bassist Ray Brown, and revered drummer Shelly Manne. That led to his jamming with the likes of Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Sarah Vaughan, and touring with Johnny Mathis. During his long career – in which he cut six solo albums – numerous other guitar aces including: Les Paul, Howard Roberts, Barney Kessell, Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins, and Glen Campbell all came to admire his artistry. Turns out that Buddy Fite had also made an impact on Nelson – years later he mailed Fite a postcard that read: “To Buddy Fite, my music teacher. Love, Willie.”