Buddy Merrill (born July 16, 1936), born Leslie Merrill Behunin, Jr., is an American guitar player and steel guitar player, best known as a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show. He has recorded over 25 albums in his career.
Leslie Merrill Behunin, Jr. was the oldest of four children, born to Leslie Merrill Behunin, Sr. and Juanita Marie Ortego Behunin, in Torrey, Utah. Nicknamed "Buddy", at age eight he got his first guitar and soon began performing live with his father's band, The Fremont River Rangers. Three years later, he appeared with his father live on local television station KDYL in Salt Lake City.
His first love was the steel guitar, and Buddy became quite the player on steel, as well as a six string electric guitar. As fate would have it, Buddy’s family moved from Utah to Los Angeles, CA while Buddy was still in high school. As his guitar playing improved, it was his mother that would send his own reel to reel recordings he had made (unbeknownst to Buddy) to Lawrence Welk, who played for a local dance contest each Friday night close to them and was holding a contest for a new guitar player.
He won the contest, and in 1955 he joined The Lawrence Welk Show in 1955, the same year it first went national on ABC. A young buck like Merrill drove the teens wild, he performed his guitar version of "Blue Suede Shoes," a popular hit by Elvis Presley in 1956, even though the show was aimed at “older folks”.
He briefly left the show from 1959 to 1962 when he was drafted by the Army. On his return to the Music Makers he was joined in the band's rhythm section with fellow guitarist Neil Levang. For the next twelve years the two would perform together on television. Merrill used a Fender Stratocaster guitar for many of his TV appearances, and in 1959 was featured in a print advertisement for the instrument.
Buddy Merrill was an early proponent of the recording “sound on sound” technique using two tape machines, different guitars, and tape-generated effects in a one room studio. Similar to his early recording he used to practice with (a la Les Paul), it wasn’t long before his recording library grew. Unfortunately though, a dam burst and Merrill lost a good portion of this library and equipment in 1963.
He rebuilt the house and studio and continued to be a member of the Lawrence Welk Orchestra until 1974 to devote more time to writing music and recording for Accent Records as a solo artist. He had signed with the latter in 1964, creating a lasting partnership with owner Scott Seely on both a personal and professional level.
His body of work stretches from 1956 up until 1995, and ranges in genre from Easy Listening to Country to Latin to Pop to Rock and beyond. Why wouldn’t he include something funky in his quiver of songs? Buddy also made music for TV and radio while also keeping his solo music career alive, proving he wasn’t just a player under the Welk orchestra, but a solid Musician on his own. He continued to perform live, either as a solo artist or with a band, until 1988 when he retired from the road. He continued to perform as a studio musician. He penned a symphonic work, "Living Sea", as well as original compositions for tape programmers and television commercials.
He was previously married to Faye Philpott (1957 - 1958), Ruth Graham (1960 - 1980), and Connie Albright (from 21 November 1983 until she died on 28 July 2009). Today he lives in Shingle Springs, California with his friend and band mate, Brandy Lane.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Flea Market Funk & IMDb)