In Memoriam: L.M. “Buzz” Vineyard

1950 — 2021

by Rick Rubin and Michael Elwell

Originally published in American Lutherie #145, 2022

I met Buzz sometime in the later 1980s, having first met him indirectly through his instruments while doing setups and other repairs for customers in the Spokane area who owned his work. Buzz was a unique character, as many of us in this craft can be, with an ingratiating and expressive way of communicating, usually with a hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his lips, and a very idiosyncratic approach to instrument making. His models varied from parlor to jumbo sized, flat tops, carved tops, carved tops with flat backs, mandolins, and mandolas. Some of them were stunning, all were interesting.

My bandmate Don Thomsen who knew Buzz much better than I has this to say. “I guess my favorite times with Buzz were when he would call me over to check out the latest instrument he’d finished. We would admire it and carefully play the first few tunes. He was a terrible businessman, so I helped him find homes for at least a dozen of them. My sons all own Vineyards.”

He did all of that while living on the edge of squalor. He’d had a nice clean home until a fire damaged it badly. But his workshop was different; his focus and love were inside those shop walls. Many of us would donate materials to him so he could keep building instruments.

All the cigarettes and other environmental exposures caught up with him and he received a diagnosis of COPD. The last few years were hard. Spokane has lost a colorful character and fine craftsman.

— Rick Rubin