The Man

Doc Watson was one of the most important figures in the folk and traditional acoustic music scene in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He was a master of both flat and finger picking, became a cultural phenomenon and influenced generations of folk, blues and bluegrass players.Arthel Lane Watson was born on March 3rd, 1923, the 6th of 9 children to Annie Greene and General DixonWatson. He was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina, at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains, and lived there his entire life. The Watson family can trace their history in the hill country of North Carolina back to 1790, and the musical traditions would become an integral part of Arthel’s style.

He was born with a defect in the blood vessels in his eyes, and an eye infection resulted in his becoming completely blind before his first birthday. His parents were musical, both his mother and father sang in the church on Sundays, and his mother would sing to children to sleep every night. Arthel had an interest in music from a young age, and he received his first instrument – a harmonica – for his 6th birthday.

His uncle gifted the family a Victrola Record player and a stack of discs. Among them were records by the Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers who became the greatest influences as Arthel’s musical ability developed. At the age of 10 he was enrolled in the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina. The following year, his father made him a homemade fretless banjo. He showed Arthel how to play a few things, and Arthel worked everything else out by a combination of his ear and trial and error.

At the school a fellow student had a guitar, taught Arthel a few chords and introduced him to the music of Django Reinhardt. When he was 13 and home on holidays, his brother borrowed a guitar from a friend, and Arthel were playing around with it. His father heard him and issued a challenge: if Arthel could learn a song by the end of the day, his father would buy him a guitar of his own. Already knowing a few chords, and having a natural talent for music, Arthel concentrated hard and learnt, by ear, the Carter Family’s “When The Roses Bloom In Dixieland” in one day. His reward was a 12 dollar Stella guitar.

From that moment, Arthel’s focus changed entirely to guitar. He would later say “the banjo was something I really liked, but when the guitar came along, to me that was my first love in music.” On that Stella, Arthel learned to strum with a thumb pick as an accompaniment to his singing. He learnt all the Carter Family songs, including leads which he played with the thumb and occasionally his fingers. Then he moved onto Jimmie Rodger’s songs and worked out that Rodger’s sound came from using a pick. He got one, learn Rodger’s style, then realised he could play the Carter family’s songs much more effectively using the pick.

When he was 17, his father, who expected Arthel to work as much as his other children, paid him and a brother to cut down dead trees around their property. Using the money, he upgraded to a Silvertone guitar. He started playing in the streets, either solo or with a friend Paul Greer, and started to attract attention from other musicians. This led him to be invited to play at fiddlers’ conventions and amateur contests.

One of these contests, when he was 18, was for a local radio show, broadcasting from a furniture store in Lenoir. When the announcer remarked that “Arthel Watson” was a long name to announce on radio, a member of the crowd called out “call him Doc!” The nick name stuck. The same year, he travelled into the mountains to play with an old time fiddler. The fiddler had a daughter, Rosa Lee. 6 years later and the fiddler moved his family into town and Doc and Rosa Lee became re-acquainted and started dating. They were married in 1947.

When Doc was 21, he started paying off his first high quality guitar: a Martin D-28. His local music store allowed him a year to pay it off, and he earnt the money by busking for tips on street corners. He also attempted to play fiddle, but just couldn’t get into it. Every the creator, he taught himself how to play fiddle lines on the guitar. After his marriage he worked as a piano tuner, fathering a son, Merle in 1949, and a daughter, Nancy, in 1951. He joined a local band, Jack Williams and the Country Gentlemen, in 1953.

He played both lead and rhythm with Williams, who didn’t use a fiddle player. He added a pick up to his Martin, but it didn’t give him the tone he wanted, so he traded it in for a Les Paul electric. He played with Williams for 8 years, improving all the time, and continued to play acoustic music with family and friends, adopting the techniques he had learnt on the electric to an acoustic (although he didn’t own one – he borrowed acoustics off friends for these jams).

One of these friends was Clarence Ashley, a member of the Carolina Tar Heels, a band that had recorded in the 1920s. As the folk revival started to gain momentum in 1960, two musicologists, Ralph Rinzler and Eugene Earle, came to Deep Gap to record Ashley and to see the other traditional music being played. Ashley assembled a band of local musician to back him, and Doc was among them. Impressed by Doc’s playing, Rinzler visited him at home and recorded him playing, both solo and with family and friends, on a friend’s borrowed Martin D-18.

These recordings lead to Doc and his some of his family and friends being among a group of local musicians invited to New York for a concert showcasing traditional folk music of the Appalachians. Well received, the group played at various other concerts and colleges around the city, and Rinzler, who would look after the blind guitarist, convinced Doc to play solo shows in coffee houses and cafes in New York. These shows were successful, and Rinzler released an album featuring the original field recordings made in 1960 with recordings made on the road titled “The Watson Family”. This created even more interest and allowed Doc to become a full time musician, and lead him to a performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 which exposed him to a huge audience.

Rinzler wasn’t able to accompany Doc to all the shows, and soon got a job which made accompanying him to any show very difficult. 1963 was tough for Doc, away from Rosa Lee and having to travel by himself, as a blind man, to various shows. IN 1964, however, his 15 year old son, Merle, who had recently started learning the guitar, joined his father in New York and became both his travelling companion and musical partner. They played together at the 1964 Newport folk festival, along with other family members and friends, which was recorded and released as “Treasure Untold”.

Also in 1964, Rinzler organised Doc’s first studio sessions. He recorded 11 tracks, 9 of them solo and the other 2 accompanied by a second guitar. The record was titled “Doc Watson” and was instantly successful in the folk scene. The following year saw the release of “Doc Watson and Son”, the first album credited to both Doc and Merle, released. The rest of the 60s saw a new studio album, sometimes two, released every year.

In the 70’s, Merle’s playing had developed to the point where he was a great musician in his own right. As a result, Doc and Merle became a duo, supported by a band, and released a string of albums and played sell out shows across the country. Three of their albums won Grammy Awards for Best Traditional or Best Country albums in the decade.

The 80s were a bitter sweet time for Doc. Merle had grown tired from the first 20 years of his life spend as a touring musician, and in 1984 had wound back his performing, replaced by his good friend Jack Lawrence. In 1985 Merle was killed in a tractor accident on his land. Doc was devastated, and quit music, but had a dream in which Merle urged him to keep going.

With Jack Lawrence as his new partner, Doc won Grammys in 1986 and 1990. He established and hosted the yearly “MerleFest” bluegrass festival, held in Wilkesboro NC in 1988, but gradually reduced his touring and recording. In 2002, he released “Legacy”, a 3 record set of music and interviews summing up his life in music, and it deservedly won the Grammy for best traditional recording. It was his final solo recording, a statement on his retirement from the business, although he would still occasionally guest star on other’s recordings or appear live.

Although his output was well reduced, Doc received a life time achievement Grammy in 2004, and a final Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Recording in a duet with Brian Sutton. His last performance, fittingly, was at MerleFest 2012, where he improvised away from the set list and had the crowd roaring in appreciation.

Doc fell at his home on May 21, 2012, was hospitalised and required surgery. He never recovered, and passed away on May 28, 2012. He is buried alongside his son, at the Merle and Doc Watson Memorial Cemetery, on private property owned by the Watson family in his lifelong home of Deep Gap, North Carolina.

