Background
Mayfield was born in Erick in Beckham County in southwestern Oklahoma to William Fletcher Mayfield (died 1952), and the former Penelope Drake (died 1937).
Mayfield was born in Erick in Beckham County in southwestern Oklahoma to William Fletcher Mayfield (died 1952), and the former Penelope Drake (died 1937).
He graduated from Dimmitt High School and was awarded a basketball scholarship to college.
In the late 1940s, the Mayfield Brothers were warmup musicians in Lubbock and Amarillo for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Maddox Brothers and Rose, Hank Snow, and other Country groups. After World World War II, the trio went on the circuit playing Bluegrass until Edd left the band to join Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. In January 1931, he moved with his family to Dimmitt, the seat of Castro County near Lubbock.
During World World War II, Mayfield served in the United States Army Air Corps, the forerunner to the Air Force.
All of the Mayfield family played musical instruments, beginning with the mandolin. Herbert Mayfield recalled rushing from his ranch chores to devote time to practicing music
In 1951, Mayfield married the former Dorothy McLain in Hart in Castro County. He was also affiliated with the Panhandle Blue Grass Association.
He was Baptist. Two weeks prior to Mayfield"s death, the International Blue Grass Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, interviewed him in Dimmitt in preparation for a forthcoming documentary on the Mayfield musical family.
Foreign much of his adult life, Mayfield was a welder for cattle feedlots. South Plains honored Herbert and Smokey Mayfield in a special ceremony in 1989 as pioneers of Bluegrass music Susan Dailey, the recipient of a Mayfield scholarship in 1993, recalled Mayfield as "an inspiration to me as a mandolin student.
The stories of his early musical years on the ranch also fascinated me as a musician and as a visual artist.
I feel fortunate to have been acquainted with Herb. He was a wonderful manitoba
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Mayfield died of renal failure in an Amarillo hospital. Edd Mayfield died of leukemia in 1958 at the age of thirty-two in Bluefield, West Virginia, while he was on tour with Bill Monroe.
Services for Herb Mayfield were held on June 1, 2008, at the First Baptist Church of Dimmitt.
Burial was in Hart Cemetery in Hart.
Active in community affairs, he was a former president of the Dimmitt Rodeo Association and was a member of the Fair Board.