Joe Dobbs

Joe Dobbs – the beloved fiddler who came to Appalachia nearly 50 years ago and introduced its music to people around the world – died September 21, 2015, just five weeks after his 81st birthday. His love for the region was pronounced. “I wasn't born in West Virginia,” he liked to say, “but I got here as soon as I could.” Born near Greenville, Mississippi, on Aug. 15, 1934, son of Walter and Lillie (Berry) Dobbs, Joe spent his first three decades working various jobs, from the oil rigs off Louisiana's Gulf Coast to Old West shows in Colorado to radio stations from New Mexico to Tennessee. Along the way, he and his wife Amy reared six children: Dale, Diane, Susie, Jani, David, and Scott. Music defined Joe's life. Whenever he played “Billy in the Low Ground,” he remembered when he was 5 years old hearing his grandfather play the same tune. Thirty-five years later, in 1976, Joe and his brother Dennis created the popular music store Fret 'n Fiddle on Huntington's West 14th Street, later moving to Heritage Village in downtown Huntington before relocating to its permanent home at 809 Pennsylvania Ave. in St. Albans. At each location, the store became a musicians' oasis, its Saturday jam sessions becoming legendary. Friendships made at those jams engendered many a band, including Joe's own groups. With Dennis and Mary Faith Rhoads, for instance, Joe formed a trio that would carry the U.S. State Department's musical diplomacy to Africa and beyond in the mid-1970s. Later, Joe formed other acclaimed ensembles with Margaret Ray and Bill Hoke, and with fiddler Jenny Allinder, a group in which Joe switched from fiddle to mandolin. He also loved performing in duets with guitarists like Robin Kessinger, Jesse Smith, Ritch Collins, Chris Sutton and Randy Brown, or with dear old friends like singers Sallie Sublett and Michelle Lewis and dear new friends like innovative young percussionist Lee Hines. And of course, people were always awed whenever Joe played twin fiddle with Buddy Griffin or Bobby Taylor or Cathy Grant. Joe's longest-running musical relationship was with The 1937 Flood, the band he co-founded in 1973 with Dave Peyton and Charlie Bowen, soon afterwards to be joined by Roger Samples and Stewart Schneider. More than 40 years later, Joe still was performing with The Flood. And it was Joe who even named the band in a moment of on-stage inspiration. While stepping up to play its first gig in Carter Country, Kentucky, the group realized it hadn't decided what to call itself, so Joe walked to the mike and said, “They call us 'The 1937 Flood,' because back in Huntington they're still talking about us!” It stuck. When not making music, Joe traveled. Sometimes it was on organized tours, like the Alaskan cruise he and Margaret Ray took a few summers ago, but more often the trips were impulsive, solo adventures such as his motorcycle journeys to the Pacific Coast and back on his cream-colored Honda Gold Wing. Meanwhile, many people knew Joe mainly as a friendly voice in the dark. For 20 years he was the host of the popular Friday night “Music from the Mountains” show on West Virginia Public Radio. With his late producer/engineer George Walker, Joe recorded live studio performances, always leaving time for the musicians to spend part of the hour telling their own stories. His weekly guests ranged from venerated music legends to promising newcomers he met at events like the annual Vandalia Gathering that he frequently hosted at the state capitol. Whether with a band or as a soloist, Joe took the music to every corner of the community. On any given day, he might play for an afternoon at a nursing home, hospital or school classroom, then that night move on to the Governor's Mansion to fiddle for visiting exchange students. Or he might spend an evening playing fiddle during the scenes of the Mary Draper Ingles drama written and performed by his longtime friend Edwina Ziegler. Just a year ago, Joe was among those invited to play at Congressman Ken Hechler's 100th birthday party. A week later, he was playing his fiddle on stage every night for a week as part of the cast of the Marshall University Theater production of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” A year or so before that, you would have found him on a book tour with The Flood to introduce his 2011 autobiography, “A Country Fiddler,” published by Mid-Atlantic Highlands. It is that book that sums up Joe's joy with his music. “I don't think that I will live long enough to play the violin as well as I would like,” he wrote on the last page, but “I am so lucky to be living my dream and still learning to play my fiddle.” Joe was preceded in death by his father, Joe Walter Dobbs Sr, his mother, Lillie Lucille Dobbs, his brother, Dwayne Eugene Dobbs, and his sister, Lucille Vivian Davis. He is survived by a large and loving family, including his son and daughter-in-law Dale and Cheryl Dobbs; his daughter and son-in-law Diane and Harold Johnson, their son, Andy Dobbs, and their grandchildren, Leslie and Nate Dobbs and Alden Amick; his daughter and son-in-law Susie and A.J. Napier and their children, Amy, Albert and Eli Napier, and their granddaughter, Jasmine Tabor; his daughter and son-in-law Jani and Tony Dobbs-Chauncey, their son, Jeffrey Dobbs, and their grandchildren, Noah Treadwell and Benjamin Ryx; his son and daughter-in-law David and Theresa Jorgensen Dobbs and their children, Aidin Jorgensen and Scott and Autumn Dobbs; and his son and daughter-in-law Scott and Connie Dobbs and their children, Ryan and Lindsay Dobbs. Joe also is survived by his brother, Dennis Dobbs, of Austin, Texas, his wife Barbara, and their two children, Christopher and Candice. A sharing of stories by family and friends will begin at 7:00pm Friday September 25, 2015 at Bartlett-Chapman Funeral Home, St. Albans. Visitation will be at 5:00pm until service time Friday at the funeral home. You may share sympathies and stories with the family at www.chapmanfuneralhomes.com Bartlett-Chapman Funeral Home, family-owned and located at 409 Sixth Avenue, St. Albans is honored to serve the Dobbs family.

Joe Dobbs

August 15, 1934 - September 21, 2015