Smokey Mayfield

Arlie Vincent Mayfield, I (June 20, 1924 – September 11, 2008), known as Smokey Mayfield, was a ranch supervisor in the Texas Panhandle and a bluegrass musician. In the late 1940s, Mayfield and his brothers played warmup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Maddox Brothers and Rose, Hank Snow, and other country singers.

Mayfield was born to William Fletcher Mayfield (died 1952) and the former Penelope Drake (died 1937) in rural Dawn in Deaf Smith County southwest of Amarillo. In January 1931, he moved with his parents, three brothers, and two sisters to Dimmitt, the county seat of Castro County near Lubbock in West Texas, where he attended school, having left high school before graduation. He served in the United States Army in the European Theater of World War II and participated, at the age of 20, in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium in December 1944 – January 1945.