Buck Trent, a giant of banjo playing in the annals of country music, died on Monday (9) at the age of 85. Also a guitar player, he contributed the distinctive acoustic introduction and accompaniment to Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” also playing on her original “I Will Always Love You” and others, and appearing on albums by Porter Wagoner, Roy Clark, Nancy Sinatra, and many others.
Trent was a member of Wagoner’s Wagon Masters and of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, and appeared regularly on The Porter Wagoner Show, Hee Haw and The Marty Stuart Show. “Buck toured the Soviet Union in 1976 with us and Roy Clark,” posted the Oak Ridge Boys. “He was an incredible banjo player and a very funny man…we will sure miss him down here.”
An array of other fellow country notables joined the chorus of tributes, including Janie Fricke, who said: “I have special memories working with Buck Trent, and enjoyed watching his talent of entertaining – I’m so thankful for my time at Hee Haw.” Moe Bandy added: “When I heard the news this morning, it hit hard. I was just talking about him at the Grand Ole Opry the other night and was looking forward to our next visit. I never dreamed it wouldn’t happen. Tell your friends you love them, because you never know when they will be gone. He was a great man and I am praying for his family.”
David Frizzell wrote: “I first got to meet Buck with my brother Lefty at one of The Porter Wagoner TV shows. Later in my career I worked with Buck on a lot of shows including Hee Haw (with Frizzell & West) and was proud to be on one of his last albums. I have never been around anyone who would make you feel so good just by being around him. Oh Yeah!”
Charles Wilburn “Buck” Trent was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina on February 17, 1938, and was a precocious talent even by the age of seven, when he started to play Hawaiian guitar. By 11, he was appearing on local radio stations, becoming fluent on banjo, steel guitar, dobro, mandolin, and regular guitar and bass.
After stops in California and with his own band in other states, he went to Nashville to join Bill Carlisle’s band in 1959, then working for Monroe and Wagoner and joining the cast of the latter’s long-running, top-rated show. In addition to his TV residencies, he became famous for “duelling” duets with Clark, with whom he won the CMA’s Instrumental Group of the Year awards in 1975 and 1976.
Trent amassed a solo catalog of 15 albums on such labels as Smash, RCA, Boone, Dot, and ABC, also playing on records by such as Mac Wiseman, Norma Jean, Johnnie & Jack, and Stuart, on whose 2012 album Nashville: Tear The Woodpile Down he was on the title track. He was a headline artist in Branson, Missouri in the 1990s and released his last album, Spartanburg Blues, in 2018.
