09/03/2025
Bud Meredith: "A Kentuckian and His Fiddle" "By I. N. Combs, Jr. Courier-Journal newspaper, OCT 1949
Bud Meredith's ancient violin has been with him everywhere, even at bloody Omaha Beach.
As the LST transporting the 160th Combat Engineers plowed through the English Channel toward Omaha Beach on the night of August 11, 1944, plaintive notes of music floated into the dreary air because a real Kentucky fiddler was aboard.
The player was Bud Meredith, and he had brought his fiddle a long way from his native state. Back home in Grayson County, he had certainly never dreamed that he would be giving out with renditions of “Cacklin’ Hen” and “Mockingbird” as he crossed the narrow sea from Southampton on the way to Normandy and battle.
Bud and his fiddle have been almost inseparable ever since he was old enough to hold the instrument. He was born on January 3, 1919, the second son of Minnie Jane Miller Meredith and Charles B. Meredith, at Higdon, Ky. Higdon, which years ago lost its Post Office to the combined assaults of the automobile and better roads, is in the rolling beargrass country and is located southeast of Leitchfield, the Grayson County seat.
Bud says that he did not decide to become a professional fiddler until he had reached the mature age of 10. At that time, he recalls, he heard Mr. and Mrs. Worthel Bocock, who still live near Pine Grove, play the fiddle and the guitar at an ice-cream supper and croquet party given at school.
Fascinated by melodies like “Tennessee Wagoner,” which Bocock had struck from his fiddle, Bud began to spend every free moment from school and from helping on his father’s farm in making his own instrument. The fiddle he constructed was quite an affair. It was made of a cigar box and cord, Bud remembers, while a small tree limb and hairs from a horse’s tail served as the bow. Bud practiced in the loft of the big barn on the farm, trying to imitate fiddlers like Bocock and Turner Gibson, his schoolteacher. Gibson, who explained to Bud how a violin is made, still lives in Grayson County and teaches vocal and instrumental music at Downs School.
After he had learned to play on his cigar box, Bud began to try to needle his father into getting him a violin. Finally his father said, “If you ever learn to strike a tune on that contraption, I’ll get you a fiddle.”
One summer evening, Minor Skaggs, who now lives at Big Clifty, was visiting the Merediths. Skaggs is quite a fiddler himself and, on that occasion, he had done several tunes when Bud asked permission to play; and, to the surprise of everyone gathered in the Meredith living room, the young man struck the tune of “Maggie” from his cigar box. As soon as Skaggs had left, Bud reminded his father of the promised fiddle.
Later that same summer, Bud remembers, came the golden moment of his life. He had been riding the cultivator in the corn field, when his father called him to the house and told him to take a short rest. They took a drink from the well and then walked into the kitchen. There, on the table, was a violin, bow and case—a present from his parents. Even today, after an interval of 20 years, Bud’s eyes fill with tears when he describes the incident.
By the time he entered high school, Bud had become good enough to attract the attention of L. O. Rust, Leitchfield businessman whose hobby is the fiddle. Rust, who now is in business in Louisville, taught Bud in his Leitchfield office, which fronted on the Grayson County courthouse square. While Bud was under Rust’s tutelage, Stoy C. Willis, also of Grayson County, gave him the instrument he has used to this day. It is over 100 years old.
During his high-school days, Bud played at school dances and at square dances and won quite a number of the fiddle contests in the county. He attended both Peonia and Short Creek High Schools and was graduated from Clarkson High School in 1939.
After Hi**er plunged Europe into war, Bud found making a living by playing the fiddle in Grayson County an impossibility, so he set out for greener fields. Finally, he gave up professional playing for the duration. After taking a welding course he went to work at Jeffersonville Boat and Machine Company, Jeffersonville, Ind. In April of 1943, Bud and his fiddle left Louisville for a training camp.
Basic training at Fort Meade, Md., was followed quickly by unit training at Fort Ethan Allen, Vt.; advanced training at Camp Rucker, Ala.; the crossing to Scotland by convoy, the movement to England and finally the embarkation at Southampton.
From Omaha Beach to Linz, Austria, Bud’s fiddle was always in his platoon’s gear. He had permission from his commanding officer to take it along as a morale builder except when going into combat. A member of the Company A, 160th Engineers Combat Regiment, 20th Corps of General George Patton’s Third Army, Bud earned five battle stars: Normandy Beach, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe.
After the end of hostilities, Bud did a short tour of duty in Linz, Austria. He was discharged on points.
Determined to earn his living as a professional fiddler, Bud returned to his native Higdon and organized the Sunshine Rangers. This string band played at picnics and fairs throughout Kentucky, and won at the past four competitions the prize for the best string band given at the annual Grayson County Day.
At present, Bud is a patient at the Nichols Hospital here. He has a bone disorder from a hip injury and the doctors have told him that he will be in bed in a plaster cast for many months. His wife, the former Miss Mary Catherine French, who takes advantage of every possible hospital visiting hour, is staying with her mother in Louisville at 2733 S. Third. Bud and Mrs. Meredith have one child, 5-year-old Michael Tyrone.
When asked how he feels about his present disability, Bud grinned and said, “If I could live down the name of Vanley, which my parents hung on me when I was born, I can whip this thing and some day go back to making my living as a real Kentucky fiddler.”
