![]() ![]() Michael Coleman joining them on electric bass - Doc and Merle toured constantly, playing to ever-bigger crowds. For many fans, the highlights of their concerts and albums were their extraordinary instrumental duets, flatpicking fiddle tunes at lightning speed, one playing melody and the other harmony.Īs a duo - and later a trio, with T. Merle taught himself guitar and began performing with his father in 1964 Doc’s second Vanguard album was titled “Doc Watson & Son.” Merle never sang (and barely spoke) on stage, but his skill on guitar soon equaled Doc’s, and together they were an incredible team. Rinzler’s field recordings of Doc were released on Folkways, followed in 1964 by Doc’s first solo album on Vanguard, the label for which he made many other LPs that ended up in virtually every acoustic guitarist’s collection.ĭoc had married Rosa Lee Carlton in 1947, and they had two children, Merle and Nancy. In the early Sixties, Doc Watson quickly became a star within folk circles, playing in clubs like Gerde’s Folk City and at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. (Once Doc’s traditional credentials had been established, he later felt able to perform other types of music he liked, including Gershwin’s “Summertime,” Tom Paxton songs, and, in 1995, a CD returning to his rockabilly roots with the clever title of “Docabilly.”) But Rinzler insisted that Doc stick to acoustic guitar, and to the traditional and country songs in his repertoire. Once Rinzler heard Doc’s playing and singing, he persuaded Doc (with considerable effort) to come to New York and perform for the growing folk music audience there. ![]() In those days, Doc was mostly performing rockabilly music on electric guitar, but Rinzler convinced him to switch to acoustic guitar for these sessions. Rinzler was in North Carolina to record old-time musicians Clarence Ashley, Clint Howard, and Fred Price, and they invited Doc to provide guitar backup. Eventually he mastered the ability to flatpick the melodies of fiddle tunes, at full speed and with astonishing precision, and that’s the style that first brought him national attention.įolklorist Ralph Rinzler discovered Doc in 1960. He developed his own style by listening closely to recordings and imitating what he heard, starting with Merle Travis-style fingerpicking. He started playing harmonica, then a handmade banjo from his father, and finally began playing guitar in his teens. His parents encouraged not only his early love of music, but a general sense of self-reliance his father put him on one end of a two-man crosscut saw “to show me that there was not a reason in the world that I couldn’t pull my own weight,” Doc recalled, and throughout his life Doc did carpentry around his house, shingled his roof, and caned chairs.ĭoc’s family sang and played music, and also owned a phonograph which introduced him to Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, and other country stars. It’s hard to overstate his influence on virtually every folk and bluegrass guitarist over the last fifty years, and his music enthralled millions of fans around the world, including those who saw him at the National Folk Festival in East Lansing in August 2001.Īrthel “Doc” Watson was born on March 3, 1923, and lost his sight from an eye infection while still a baby. Doc Watson died on Tuesday 5/29/12, at the age of 89. ![]()
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