Pete Pike Biography

Pete was born November 30, 1929 in a tenant house in Amelia County, Virginia and was raised on the family seventy-acre. Raising cattle, and farming grain and tobacco were the money crops and was hard work and a good life.
When he was about twelve years old his Dad gave him and his brother, Frank, and him their own little half-acre of tobacco and from the profits earned from the sales, purchased a Gibson J 200 guitar for himself and a Gibson F5 mandolin for Frank. Pete learned to play guitar on a Sears and Roebuck guitar and an Ernest Tubb songbook.
Pete began to practice and soon wrote his first song, Virginia Lou. When he was about fifteen, Pete hooked up with a musician about his same age named Buck Austin. Buck played the five-string banjo in the Earl Scruggs style and they began playing together and became lifetime buddies. Pete's first band consisted of Buck on the banjo and singing tenor, Franklin on the mandolin, and Pete on the guitar … and had the makings of a fine little "hillbilly" band.
At first, Pete was inspired by Vernon Dalhart, The Carter Family, The Delmore Brothers, then came Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe. One day Pete heard Bill and Charlie Monroe on a radio station out of Greensboro North Carolina, before the two brothers split up, and he just couldn't get enough of this 'Hillbilly' music.
Pete, Buck, and Franklin began playing on Wednesday nights at a little theater in the Village of Amelia, and when Pete was sixteen, his dad started letting them play some with him and his uncle (who was also the state champion fiddle player in the 1930's). This gave them a lot of experience onstage and soon they were playing a lot of dances in and around the Eastern Virginia area.
In 1947, the band played for the opening of the WKLV radio station in Blackstone, Virginia. The manager,Eddie Silverman liked their music and wanted them to play a radio show for the station every Saturday. Then, in the Spring, he wanted to do the show out on the lawn and bring in a 'big star'. The first star he brought in was Little Jimmy Dickens and he called the show The Virginia Music Festival. It was very successful and one Saturday, while in the studio, Eddie said he would like to do this every year and began talking about what name it should be called. In those days, there was a program that came over the Mutual Network called The Renfro Valley Gang that sang a lot of the old folk songs and, with everyone's approval, decided to call it the Virginia Folk Music Association. The VFMA is still going on and the VFMA Festival which has moved from Blackstone, VA. to Chesterfield, Va., gets bigger and better each year with venues which include some of the top names in the Bluegrass world, as well as the new up and coming local artists.
	Pete's dad played the French harp and guitar as well as the Autoharp (as shown in picture). Pete's brother, Franklin, is on the mandolin, Buck Austin on the five-string banjo. Pete's cousin, Herbert and Pete are playing the guitar. Pete was not involved with the Virginia Folk Music Association after this time.