Wilburn Newcomb

1935 - 2025

Scholar, writer, athlete, everyman-Bud Newcomb received his Doctorate of Philosophy in musicology from the University of Goettingen in Germany, an M.A. from Indiana University, and a B.Mu from Cincinnati Conservatory. His dissertation, English Lute Music in the Elizabethan Era, was published in German by Baerenreiter, and he also published Lute Music of Shakespeare's Time. William Barley: A New Book of Tablature, Penn State University Press. His books and numerous articles established him as a respected scholar of sixteenth and seventeen century music. He additionally published The Wood Stove Handbook in 1978, a topic so different from his other books that a Library of Congress cataloguer had to verify that he was the same person as the music scholar.

He loved tennis and was a prize winning player in his teens. When he moved to a 200-acre tree farm in SC, he constructed a clay court in his front yard, cutting down large cedars for fences and net posts. Over the years, he built more than a mile of trails throughout his land, where he took nature walks and chopped down Christmas trees well into his 80s.

He was a professor of music history and German at Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, and University of Victoria, Canada but shifted gears to become a local journalist for The Herald in South Carolina. Later, he worked as a writer for a New York textile magazine, The Daily News Record, and eventually became the editor of America's Textiles, traveling all over the world to places like Japan, Switzerland, and Italy. His final position was as Grants Director at Winthrop University, and he taught classes in technical writing and German at UNCC and Winthrop. He participated in local theater, with leading roles in The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Steven Sondheim's Follies.

In his retirement he enjoyed journaling and reading philosophy. He was a lifelong learner with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from history to beer brewing.

He has four wonderful, accomplished daughters, Karen Newcomb, Emily Wilson, Suzanne Newcomb, and Rachel Newcomb, all of whom brought him his greatest joy. They added to his happiness with his ten grandchildren. He also leaves behind his wife of 56 years, Lorraine Gorrell, his intellectual partner in the love of music, theater, art, books, and life.