Butch Robins, raconteur, professional musician, philosopher, author, businessman, teacher, and friend. I have written about him in this blog several times, and am happy to say that we now have a new archival collection helping to preserve his legacy. The Butch Robins Collection, and the associated Butch Robins Digital Collection.
This new physical collection is generally made up of three different categories which represent different parts of his career: The World International Blue Grass Band, the Robins-Hay music project in which Butch conceived of, produced, played on, marketed etc four CD/cassette collections of bluegrass and gospel favorites (including mixing and arranging notes from this and other of his recording projects), and video/audio recordings of live shows and interviews throughout his career. The collection contains other things as well, including recording logs and notes, some photographs and correspondence, vintage Blue Grass posters, etc. The digital collection contains photographs ranging from his years with Bill Monroe to his World International Blue Grass Band project, and audio/video recordings spanning many years of his career etc.
Joseph Calvin “Butch” Robins was born May 12, 1949 in Lebanon, VA. Due to his father, Calvin Robins’ work, the family moved around a bit for the next 14 years before resettling in Virginia in 1963. They lived in North Carolina from 1958-1963 and it was during that time that Butch became interested in the banjo. In the latter part of 1962, Calvin found a banjo for sale in a local barber shop and bought it for Butch. The banjo was not in good shape and Calvin had to sew the head together with fishing line and did some other repairs to it, but his $2.00 investment in that banjo served Butch well as it was the start of his lifelong relationship with the banjo. He still has that banjo, and the head is still sewn together by the way!
After taking an interest in the banjo as a teenager, his father Calvin Robins began taking him to meet and play with anyone he could find that knew how to play the instrument, and that included many of the professional touring bands that would come through the area so that Butch could play with and learn from them. One of the first of these players was Homer Israel, who played in a style much like Snuffy Jenkins, who would later become one of Butch’s close friends and inspirations. Another early influence and teacher of sorts was Don Reno, who took Butch under his wing and made him think about what he needed to do to be a professional banjo player. Butch even played in the morning radio show
After graduating from high school in 1967, Butch joined Bill Monroe’s band, for a short time and played in the first Bean Blossom festival before leaving the band. He rejoined the band once again in 1977 and stayed until 1981.
Butch was drafted into the military in 1969 (1969-1971) and was sent to Columbia SC, and it was there that he met and was befriended by Snuffy Jenkins. While in South Carolina, Butch also met and joined the band of Charlie Moore (1971). He later went to Tennessee and was associated with the Picking Parlor through which he was hired to work with such acts as the jazz player Harry James, toured with rock star Leon Russell (1972), joined the New Grass Revival as a bass player(1973-74), joined Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper’s band (1975-77), worked with Jim and Jesse (1977), released the album “40 Years Late (1977), re-joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys (1977-1981), released “Fragments of My Imagnicnation” (1978), released “The Fifth Child” (1980). Also in 1969, Butch entered and won first place in the 1969 Newport Folk Festival, and in Carlton Haney’s 1969 Camp Springs Bluegrass Festival.
In the years since he left the Blue Grass Boys in 1981, Butch has been in several bands, including a band he started- The Bluegrass Band (with Eddie Dye, Alan O’Bryant, Blaine Sprouse, and David Sebring), Model Prisoners, and others. He toured USA, Australia, Japan, and Europe, and from that experience he had the idea of forming a band with members from around the world- the World International Blue Grass Band and included Butch Robins (USA), Kazuhiro Inaba (Japan), Sean McKerr (Ireland), Arnold Lasseur (Holland), Hamish Davidson (Australia), Jan Johansson (Sweden). Also, he released the albums: The Bluegrass Band-Once Again From the Top (1990), The Bluegrass Band- Shine Hallelujah Shine (1991), The Bluegrass Band- 2nd Cut (1991), Grounded, Centered, Focused (1995).
In 2003 Butch wrote and published an autobiography- What I know About What I Know. In 2013 he recorded a 5 part video series at Radford University called Butch Robins Presents: Blue Grass Music, its Origin and Development as a Unique and Creative Art Form, which is available on the university library website. Also notable, in 2016 Butch was inducted into the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Hall of Fame in Bean Blossom, Indiana.
Butch Robins has been a regular performer in the New River Valley area of Virginia both as a solo artist, and an ensemble player (many examples of this are part of this collection as DVD or Audio CD) and is a sought after session musician and has many producer credits (a complete discography listing performer and producer credits is in box 1 of this collection).