Beloved Kentucky banjo builder and luthier Arthur Hatfield died yesterday following a battle with lung cancer. He was 76 years of age.
For the past 40 years he built high-quality, professional-grade five-string banjos from a small shop behind his home in Glasgow, KY. A cabinet maker and trim carpenter by trade, Arthur started out building banjos on the side using the skills he had learned working with wood. He also did repairs on stringed instruments of all kinds, especially since making building and repair his primary occupation in 2001.
His banjos were built using the Mastertone style that Gibson developed in the late 1920 and early ’30s, and while he did the woodworking and finishing himself, buyers could often choose which metal parts were used in construction, including his own Hatfield tone ring which he had manufactured to his specifications.
Arthur was also a fine banjo player and led his own band, Arthur Hatfield & Buck Creek for many years.
But despite the legion of satisfied customers, and the many owners of his banjos, people will surely recall Hatfield more for his kindness and generosity to the banjo and bluegrass community than for anything he built. Often he would have trouble completing work he had promised because of the number of people who had dropped by to spend time with Arthur, and listen to his stories.
Earlier this year, Arthur Hatfield received the 2025 Homer Ledford Award from the Kentucky Folklife Program at Western Kentucky University, which celebrates “the legacy and creative industry of traditional stringed instrument makers who are vital to Kentucky musical culture.”
Hatfield suffered a major setback in January when a fire which started in his shop consumed the entire building before firefighters could arrive on the scene. He lost all of his tooling, finished stock, and wood supplies in the fire, though he was fortunately unharmed.
His passing is a great loss to the people who knew him, and the banjo world is poorer for his passing.
No information on funeral arrangements has yet been made public.
R.I.P., Arthur Hatfield.
