Acclaimed W.Va. fiddle player, radio host dies

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Iconic local musician Joe Dobbs died Monday. He was 81.

Dobbs, who moved to West Virginia in 1967, left his mark on the music scene in the Mountain State in myriad ways.

The always smiling, and sweet spirited fiddler founded the Huntington-based 1937 Flood in the 1970s with fellow old-time music lovers, Charlie Bowen and Dave Peyton, who still carry on the tradition.

Dobbs owned and operated the St. Albans-based Fret ‘n’ Fiddle music store and shared his love of old-time music as the soft-spoken, open-hearted host of the radio program “Music From The Mountains,” a show that featured music from around the world for more than 25 years before he retired the show in 2007.

As a recording artist, instructor and lecturer, he performed not only at festivals and universities around the U.S. and Canada, but also toured Africa, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Europe, performing traditional Appalachian folk music…