Doc WatsonRare Performances1963-1981featuringMerle WatsonT. Michael ColemanClint HowardFred Price

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Doc WatsonRare Performances, 1963-1981

by Mark Humphrey

This video documents the first two decades of DocWatson’s public life. It opens with a performance at an Eastcoast college and ends at an English folk festival. Venuesand audiences shift while the central figure remains immu-tably himself. Given such assured certainty, it’s surprising tolearn that Doc once doubted he could pull this off: “To behonest,” Doc admitted to Art Coats (Pickin’, February 1975),“when the opportunity to get into music professionally camealong for me in the early 1960s, I didn’t think I had thatmuch talent. But I needed a way to earn a decent living formy wife and children. I loved to play music, and I just lovedto pick with people who enjoyed it. Then somebody said,‘Well, you can make a couple of bucks at it.’ I said, ‘Well, Idon’t think I’m good enough at it, or will be good enough,but I’ll sure try.’ That’s what got me into it. If I hadn’t beenhandicapped, I probably would have been a mechanic or anelectrician or something like that, so I could go home at night.Music would have been a hobby. I wouldn’t say that I wouldn’thave picked a guitar, but I wouldn’t have made a professionout of it. But the desire to earn a living got me into it andlove of the music made me work at it.”

1968, Photo by Jerry Sudderth

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Hard work went with the turf where Arthel L. Watsonwas born on March 23, 1923. One of the nine children ofGeneral Dixon and Annie Watson, he was born in Stoney ForkTownship, Watauga County, North Carolina but raised in DeepGap, where he still lives. Born with a condition restrictingblood flow to his eyes, an infection destroyed his corneas ininfancy. (Treatment by a quack doctor may have contributedto the damage.) “I can vaguely remember somethin’ aboutthat the moon was round somewhere in my consciousness,”Doc told Jean Stewart and Joe Wilson (Sing Out! Vol. 29/No.1). “And I can remember where I could stand on my porch asa little tiny fella and see the reflection of the light on thefrost on the ground, or could notice the glimmer of sunshineon white horses and things that passed along close to thehouse, but that was a long time ago...”

Music was a constant in Doc’s family, whether it was hisfather singing hymns (he led the singing at the Mt. ParonBaptist Church) or his mother singing old folk songs and bal-lads. Doc’s earliest musical memories are of church singing:“To me as a little tiny boy,” he told folklorist A.L. Lloyd, “Iremember thinking it must sound like that in heaven, if weever get there.” More earthy sounds came from harmonicasthat arrived annually at Christmas: “I guess to play a littlestraight country harmonica was like whistling,” Doc recalled.“It just became a natural part of me.”

When Doc was six, the family acquired a used Victrolaand a cache of 78s from a maternal uncle. “We thought wehad the king’s treasure when he brought that thing in andset it up and played a record or two,” recalled Doc, who would30 years later accompany one of the men whose 78s wereamong the “king’s treasure,” Clarence Ashley. Other records thatmade an impression were those of the Carter Family, JimmieRodgers, and such sacred singers as J.D. Vaughn’s Quartet. “IfDad played the gramophone,” Doc told Lloyd, “I was sitting rightby it.”

At age ten, Doc was sent away to North Carolina’s StateSchool for the Blind at Raleigh. Along with the inevitablehomesickness, Doc encountered some bitter and belittlingcaretakers: “They should have been in an institution,” he onceremarked, “rather than controlling little children, especiallyblind people.” Suspended for smoking in seventh grade, Docadamantly refused to return to the State School for the Blind.(“I learned to figure my way out of a paper bag there at least,”

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he admits.) He continued his education at home via TalkingBooks (“they had battery-driven Talking Books for people thatreally lived up in the country”) and obtained some valuablelessons in self-confidence from his father. “I had what somepeople refer to as a complex,” Doc told Art Coats. “If it hadn’tbeen for my Dad putting me on the other end of a crosscutsaw and teaching me that I was of some benefit other thanjust to sit around in the corner somewhere, I don’t think Iwould have had much incentive in life to do anything.”

Further incentive came in the form of a banjo GeneralDixon made for his 11-year-old son. An ailing cat gave its lifeto become a banjo head, and young Doc was “the proudestfellow you ever seen when I learned to play the first tune onthat thing.” General Dixon told Doc: “Son, pick me a tune onthat thing. I want you to learn to pick it real good. It mighthelp you get through the world.” At age 13 (the same yearhis father tested him on the saw), Doc got his first guitar, aStella: “one of those ten-dollar guitars,” he told Gary Govert(Carolina Lifestyle, August 1983), “a pretty good little thingto learn on, but hard to fret as a barbed wire fence.” None-theless Doc was soon playing Carter Family songs (WhenRoses Bloom in Dixieland was his first triumph on guitar)and working out brother duet songs with an older brother,Linney, in the manner of such popular duos as the Monroeand Delmore Brothers.

The fact that several influential Southern singer-guitar-ists (Riley Puckett, Rev. Gary Davis, and Blind Willie Johnson

1963, N

ewport Folk Festival. Photo by D

avid Gahr

John Cohen, Clarence Ashley, Doc Boggs & Doc Watson

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among them) were, like Doc, blind has led to the notion thatblindness and a heightened sense of hearing contributes tomusical ability. Asked about this by Joe Wilson, Doc said ofhis blindness: “It probably was a deterrent in some waysbecause I couldn’t look at the page and learn the chords. Ihad to learn by sound...So the way I get some of the chordsis, well, unreasonable...I don’t finger them right. In otherwords, it would have been a lot easier if I’d have learnedproperly.”

But Doc persisted and became increasingly involved withthe guitar. When he was 17 he purchased a Sears Silvertonemodel with money earned chopping wood. A year later hehad traded up to a Martin D-28 earned by ‘street busking’: “Iplayed on the street nearly every Saturday when the weatherwas warm at a cab stand in Lenore, South Carolina,” Doctold Jon Sievert (Frets, Vol. 1/No. 1, March 1979). “Some-times I’d make as much as $50.00 and I paid that guitar offin four or five months.” Doc did a lot of ‘busking’ betweenage 18 and 25: “I ain’t ashamed of this because I had to doit,” he told Art Coats. “I used to pick some on the street indifferent places, especially along the back lots where theywould have taxi stands. Them ol’ boys wanted you to comeand pick, ‘cause it got them a whole lot of customers – andyou could make a couple of bucks.”

At 18, Doc was playing in a group which appeared onradio broadcasts from a furniture store where patrons en-joyed a live show while browsing for furnishings. When theannouncer found Arthel a mouthful and wondered aloudwhat else to call the band’s guitarist, a young lady in thestore suggested, “Call him Doc.” The name has stuck.

In 1947 Doc married Rosa Lee Carlton and faced thedaunting prospect of raising a family. “Rosa Lee grew theawfullest vegetable gardens you ever seen over summer tohelp feed us,” Doc told Gary Govert, “and I tuned up a fewpianos now and then.” Around 1953 Doc started working ina band with Tennessee piano player Jack Williams. Heswapped his Martin D-28 for a Gibson Les Paul Standardand entertained at such venues as the Mountain HomeVeteran’s Hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee. It was Doc’ssteady gig for the better part of a decade. Along with popand country hits of the era, Williams’ band sometimes hadto deliver ‘old time’ fiddle tunes for square dances. Withouta fiddler the job of playing these tunes fell to Doc, who

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worked out much of his famous acoustic flatpicking style ona Les Paul!

While Doc was playing rockabilly in the country, city folkswere warming up to the folk songs he had heard as a boy.The roots of the urban ‘folk boom’ can be traced to the early1950s hits of the Weavers (Goodnight Irene, On Top of OldSmoky). Later the Kingston Trio’s groundbreaking Tom Dooleythrew down the commercial gauntlet in 1958 for the early1960s success of groups like Peter, Paul & Mary. But a fewurban aficionados were looking for truer folk music as playedby people who had grown up, as had Doc, hearing this mu-sic in their families and communities. One of these fans wasmusician-folklorist Ralph Rinzler, who, in the company of col-lector-discographer Eugene Earle, went looking for ClarenceAshley in 1960 and found his accompanist to be the un-known Doc Watson.

Rinzler’s detailed account of his remarkable discoveryappears in his notes to The Original Folkways Recordings ofDoc Watson and Clarence Ashley: 1960-1962 (Smithsonian/Folkways CD SF 40029/30). Doc initially had misgivings aboutRinzler’s refusal to record Ashley with an electric guitar ac-companist, but the two men gradually warmed to one an-other when they discovered their common love for old timecountry. “Now Ralph, he really bent over backwards to helpme,” Doc later remarked. Rinzler brought Doc to New YorkCity in the Spring of 1961 for a concert appearance as amember of Ashley’s stringband (not, incidentally, playing a

1963, N

ewport Folk Festival. Photo by D

avid Gahr

Clarence Ashley & Doc Watson

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Les Paul). Doc’s first solo appearance was at Gerde’s FolkCity in December 1962. In November 1963, noted folk pro-moter Harold Leventhal, who managed the Weavers, pre-sented Doc in concert at Town Hall with Bill Monroe and hisBlue Grass Boys. (On hearing Doc, Monroe commented: “Ican hear my brother Charlie, the Delmore Brothers and RileyPuckett in there.”) It was also during his 1963 New York Citytrip that Doc cut his first solo album for Vanguard. Rinzler’scomments in a Sing Out! profile (Vol. 14, No. 1, February-March 1964) were prophetic: “Doc’s impact as a soloist willsurely be profoundly felt, for there is hardly an artist in folkand/or country music who combines musical integrity withsuch total mastery of technique on several instruments, andsuch warmth and honesty of presentation.”

Doc’s impact wasn’t exclusively as a soloist. The perfor-mances here show him in the company of his old Ashleyaccompanists, singer-fiddler Fred Price and singer-guitaristClint Howard, and, of course, that of his son Merle, who firstappeared with his father at age 15 in 1964. With the addi-tion of electric bass guitarist T. Michael Coleman, who joinedthe Watsons in 1974, we witness a shift in Doc’s performancestyle from the early folk revival days to that of the rowdierbluegrass festival era of 1970s-80s. “I think I’ve pushed Dadto get a little more progressive,” Merle told Gary Govert in

1970, Photo by Jerry Sudderth

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1983. “He was really hung up on that traditional thing, andwas afraid he’d lose all his followers if he played what hereally wanted to for years.” Doc told Rick Gartner (Frets, Au-gust 1983): “When I got into the folk revival of the 1960s,Ralph Rinzler told me, ‘Doc, now when you get your foot inthe door you can expand your sets and play some of theother things that you enjoy playing, but during this periodplay the traditional music. Lean on it.’ That we did, and webarely got through the slump of the late 1960s and early1970s.” The folk revival had died by then, but the ‘back-to-the-roots’ phase of the counterculture embraced Doc afterhis appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s influential 1971triple album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. For Doc, who per-formed songs from a deep well of family tradition in the com-pany of an immensely talented son, that question need neverhave come up.

The Performances

Deep River BluesAlton and Rabon Delmore, one of the best and bluesiest

of the early country brother duos, introduced this song inthe 1933 as I’ve Got the Big River Blues. Augmenting theclose vocal harmony characteristic of brother duos was Alton’sstandard guitar and Rabon’s tenor guitar, a sound which fas-cinated Doc. He wanted to achieve a semblance of the tenor-standard guitar blend of the Delmores on a single instru-

1979, Doc W

atson, T. Michael C

oleman &

Merle W

atson

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ment, and the result was this arrangement of Deep RiverBlues. It wasn’t an overnight success, however: Doc reckonsit took the better part of a decade. The means to his endsuggested itself when Doc, along with a young Chet Atkinsand many other aspiring Southern guitarists, began listeningin rapt awe to Merle Travis’ performances on Cincinnati’s WLWin the 1940s. ‘Travis picking’ was then a new sound, andMerle’s ability to pick a treble melodic line and a bass rhythmsimultaneously seemed little short of magical.

Doc recognized it as the solution to his problem; he mayeven have heard Travis pick something like this on those oc-casions when he, Grandpa Jones, and the Delmore Brothersteamed up as the Browns Ferry Four on radio. Always eagerto credit his mentors, Doc often told concert audiences abouthis efforts as a fledgling Travis picker and how long it tookhim to achieve satisfactory coordination and separation ofhis surrogate tenor (fingers) and standard (thumb) guitars.

This 1963 performance was on the Hootenanny televi-sion variety show hosted by Jack Linkletter. The show usu-ally presented collegiate folk acts and gained some notori-ety when it declined to present Pete Seeger (Hootenannywas subsequently boycotted by Joan Baez). This writer, tenyears old at the time, saw this performance of Doc Watsonand had Deep River Blues ringing in his head for a long timeafterward. I didn’t remember the name of the performer orknow anything about his music, just that it seemed moreintriguing than anything else I’d ever heard on Hootenanny!

Fred Price, Clint Howard & Doc Watson

1963, N

ewport Folk Festival. Photo by D

avid Gahr

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At least a couple of yearspassed, the song and itsdistinctive guitar accompa-niment still ringing in myhead, before my guitarteacher, who often playedme music he thought Iought to hear, casually pro-duced a copy of Doc’s firstVanguard album andplayed Deep River Bluesfor me. That was what I’dbeen looking for, and luck-ily my teacher knew some-one who could unravelsome of Doc’s fingerstylemysteries for me. Thanks,Dr. Frost and Bi l lCheatwood, wherever youare.

Nine Pound HammerBill and Charlie Monroe recorded Nine-Pound Hammer

Is Too Heavy at their initial Bluebird recording session in 1936.Merle Travis included it in his famous 1946 Folk Songs of theHills session and can be seen performing Nine Pound Ham-mer on Merle Travis: Rare Performances/1946-1981 (VestapolVideo 13012). Folklorist Archie Green calls it “a railroad-con-struction and levee-building work song widely scattered inblack and white tradition.” Before Travis or even the MonroeBrothers, Al Hopkins & His Buckle Busters had recorded thesong for Brunswick in 1927. The trio of Doc, fiddler-singerFred Price and guitarist-singer Clint Howard (the lead voicehere) perform it with old-time stringband abandon.

Daniel PrayedDaniel has long been a favorite figure of religious folk-

lore and folk song. Here Price sings lead, Howard tenor andDoc bass in a stirring a cappella portrait of faith tested andrewarded. Rinzler wrote: “Doc, Clint and Fred recalled sing-ing this at church in their younger days and refreshed theirmemory from The Best of All, a shape-note hymnal.”

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St. James HospitalOne of the most widespread and endlessly revamped

Anglo-American ballads, this was Streets of Laredo in theWild West and St. James Infirmary Blues to African-Ameri-cans. Despite myriad changes of place and tune, all variantskept at their core a dying man’s request for a fancy funeral.The female pallbearers were initially whores, not maidens,for Doc’s dying cowboy had begun life in 18th century Brit-ish broadsides as a rake (often a soldier) brought down bysyphilis. Doc learned St. James Hospital from a Pete Seegeralbum, American Folk Songs and Ballads. Doc’s rippling mi-nor-keyed guitar arrangement is quite unlike anything elsein his repertoire.

Shady Grove“I learned Shady Grove from my dad,” Doc noted in The

Songs of Doc Watson (Oak Publications, New York, 1971). “Imay have learned a couple of verses from Clarence Ashley,but my dad is mainly responsible for teaching me the song.”Doc added that he associated the song with his wife andpleasant childhood memories. “That’s what Shady Grovemeans to me,” he said, “happiness.” Here’s a rare opportu-nity to witness Doc’s command of the banjo. He often per-

1967, Photo courtesy Berkeley Folk Festival

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formed this song with guitar accompaniment (see DocWatson: Rare Performances, 1982-1993, Vestapol Video13024).

Black Mountain RagThe tune’s fiddling composer, Leslie Keith, sometimes

called this Black Mountain Blues. Much as Doc admired Keith,he says later versions by fiddlers Tommy Jackson and CurlyFox more directly inspired his celebrated adaptation for gui-tar: “My arrangement on the guitar is closer to theirs than tothe original because some of the things Leslie Keith did inthe old-time fiddle style I just couldn’t find on my guitar,”Doc observed. This tune was the first fiddle tune Doc playedon guitar. It may also be the most imitated of Doc’s instru-mental arrangements, the national anthem of flatpickers.

Stack O’ Lee BluesThe folk revival brought together many of the finest ex-

ponents of different traditions at events like the NewportFolk Festival. It was there Doc came to know and love Mis-sissippi John Hurt, the source of this version of Stack O’ LeeBlues. There were, of course, many, including one whichbecame a pop hit for Lloyd Price in 1959. Hurt’s original sagaof this bad man was waxed for Okeh in 1928, and Doc’srendition, with fine fin-gerpicking by Merle, isfaithful to its spirit.

Tom DooleyMurdered women

inspired their share ofballads: Laurie Fosterkeeps the fated com-pany of Omie Wise,Pearl Bryan, Poor EllenSmith and Pretty Polly.Doc learned this ebul-lient version of TomDooley from his grand-mother, who actuallyknew Tom’s parents.According to Watsonfamily lore Dooley was

1968, Photo by Jerry Sudderth

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innocent of the CivilWar era cr ime forwhich he was hung:a jealous woman isbel ieved to havecommitted the mur-der to which Dooleybecame an accom-plice. (Further thick-ening the plot, the al-leged murderesslater marr ied theSheriff Grayson whosaw to Dooley’s un-doing!) Whatever thefacts, the KingstonTrio’s 1958 revamp-ing of Frank Profitt’sversion put the spursto the nascent urbanfolk boom and ledindirectly to the dis-covery and appreciation of artists like Doc. Dooley was saidto have been a fine fiddler, which Doc reckons inspired thesprightly tune he sings.

SouthboundA teenaged (and homesick) Merle Watson wrote this

country boy’s lament while he and Doc were in New YorkCity for an extended stint. Merle’s fingerpicking and the song’sgently bluesy lilt suggest the deep impression John Hurt madeon both the Watsons.

Way DowntownGrand Ole Opry pioneers Uncle Dave Macon and Sam

McGee recorded a version of this song in 1926 as Late LastNight When My Willie Came Home. Doc probably heard theirrepressible Macon perform this on Opry broadcasts butlearned the verses of his version from a cousin, DudleyWatson. As an example of how Doc’s performance styleevolved, compare this stops-out 1978 rendition with one from1967 in the company of Clint Howard and Fred Price on Leg-ends of Old Time Music (Vestapol Video 13026).

1981, Nancy &

Eddy Merle W

atson. Photo courtesy Rosa Lee W

atson

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LonesomeRoad

The stark simplic-ity of this song reflectsthe mingling of African-American blues withancient Anglo-Ameri-can modes: the tune isbuilt on four notes butthe occasional em-phatic use of a fifthmakes it penta-tonic.Gaither Carlton likelysang it with his fiddleclosely tracing his vo-cal line. The lyrics sug-gest a creative cobblingof various elements:“The longest t rain/Georgia line” verse isfound in several folkblues, In the Pinesamong them. The “best

of friends” verse suggests the more florid lyricism of Victo-rian songs, many of which had passed into folk tradition byCarlton’s time. And the “lonesome road” is itself an arche-type heard in many forms, including Henry Whitter’strailblazing 1924 hillbilly recording, Lonesome Road Blues,or Rosetta Tharpe’s Swing-era Lonesome Road recorded withLucky Millinder’s Orchestra. (Despite very different tunes,Tharpe’s Lonesome Road and Watson’s begin with the sameverse.) Stripped to essentials, Watson’s music was seldommore affecting than this.

Medley: Nancy Roland/Salt CreekTwo fleet fiddle tunes meet their match in three superb

guitarists. The addition of Cliff Miller to the Watson familyteam allowed for some sparkling ‘three-way’ picking on SaltCreek. The revived interest in Western Swing, where suchsection work between electric and steel guitars was pio-neered, may have inspired this rousing ensemble arrange-ment.

1967

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I Wish I Was a Mole in the GroundDoc’s reference to this as a ‘courtin’ song’ implies every

song had its purpose. This one, learned from an uncle, aimedto chip away at female reserve with whimsy. (Freudian folk-lorists could surely read a double-entendre into the song’smountain-boring mole.) Doc’s frolicsome five-string nicelyabets the innocently wishful (or subliminally salacious) lyr-ics.

Sweet Georgia BrownThe theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters and a fa-

vorite guitar jam tune for decades (Django Reinhart and Os-car Aleman both waxed it in the 1930s-40s), Sweet GeorgiaBrown shows the way in which country guitarists integratedswing into their repertoire. Doc was probably wowing hisCarolina neighbors with this 1925 pop tune long before helearned of any urban interest in their old folk songs. The im-provisatory break he takes is a nice contrast to the more setarrangements played on Doc’s fiddle tunes.

Peach Pickin’ Time Down in GeorgiaLegendary Georgia fiddler Clayton McMichen wrote this

and accompanied Jimmie Rodgers on the classic 1932 re-cording. It subsequently became among the most coveredof Rodgers’ songs and a favorite of Doc’s, who first heardRodgers’s songs on his family’s Victrola when he was ten.“Jimmie has been a favorite of mine ever since,” Doc toldMitchell A. Yockelson (“An Interview with Doc Watson,” OldTime Country, Vol. VI No. III, Fall 1989). “Jimmie didn’t havea bigger fan than me.” The jaunty song frames some inspiredpicking by the Watsons, most notably Merle’s clean dobro-like slide lines. “Merle learned to play some backup on someof Jimmie’s songs and some real beautiful slide,” Doc re-called. “(Merle) Actually invented his own style for playingslide guitar.” (Merle’s slide was a Sears & Roebuck 5/8-inchsocket wrench.)

Will the Circle Be UnbrokenIn 1935, the Carter Family recorded Can the Circle Be

Unbroken (Bye and Bye). Though not the first, A. P. Carter’sversion of the song became the standard. 36 years and acouple of generations later, California’s Nitty Gritty Dirt Bandcame to Nashville with an olive branch from their side of the

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‘generation gap’ and gathered several of Nashville’s legend-ary old guard for an epochal recording session. This unlikelyalliance of roots-digging youth and firmly-rooted elders hadas its symbolic centerpiece Mother Maybelle Carter and thissong. Doc’s presence on the three-Lp Will the Circle Be Un-broken album was a career coup which brought his music toa wider audience than ever before. The performance of thesong here offers dulcet slide from Merle and a study in Doc’smagnanimity: how many stars would invite their pilot onstagefor a turn at the mike?

Rain Crow BillHenry Whitter, a Virginia-born singer-guitarist-harmonica

player, recorded a number of solo harmonica showpiecesalong with such influential songs as The Wreck of the South-ern Old 97, considered country music’s first hit record. Whitterrecorded Rain Crow Bill in 1923 and again in 1927 followingthe advent of electrical recording. The tune became widelypopular and much-emulated by legions of harp-blowersacross the South, including the young Doc Watson. “A har-monica was give to Doc every Christmas as far back as hecan remember,” wrote Ralph Rinzler. Rain Crow Bill is thus aglimpse of some of Doc’s earliest music.

Tennessee StudArkansas schoolteacher Jimmy Driftwood was suddenly

a hot songwriter in 1959 when Johnny Horton made a num-ber one hit of his historical ballad, The Battle of New Or-leans. That same year ‘the Tennessee Plowboy,’ Eddy Arnold,had a lesser hit with Driftwood’s saga of the Tennessee Stud.35 years later Johnny Cash revived the equine epic in hiscelebrated 1994 album, American Recordings, and this songhas long been a favorite of Doc’s. It was among his featuredperformances on the Will the Circle Be Unbroken album.

Medley: Big Sandy/Bill CheathamHere’s further proof (if any were needed) of Doc’s adroit

mastery of flatpicked fiddle repertoire. “I’d made up my mindthat I couldn’t play the fiddle,” Doc told Jon Sievert (Frets,Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1978) “ but I wanted to play with thesame kind of bounce and rhythm that the fiddle did so Istarted working them (fiddle tunes) out on guitar. You can’tdo the same things that are done on the fiddle but you can

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1984, Photo by Lynn Worth

do the tunes to wherethey are pretty...I hadn’theard anyone else dothat on a guitar before,”Doc recalled, and nei-ther had anyone else.

A-Rovin’ On aWinter’s Night

Doc has called this“just about one of theprettiest old-time lovesongs that you couldhope to find anywhere.”Recal l ing the nightRalph Rinzler recordedit from the singing of adistant cousin, DollyGreer, Doc cited a near-by chorus of frogs and whippoorwillsseeming to accompany the plaintive ballad. “I had never heardit before,” he said in The Songs of Doc Watson, “and I thoughtit was so beautiful.” In the notes of the album with Greer’srecording (The Watson Family Tradition, Topic 12TS336), En-glish folklorist A. L. Lloyd wrote that the song is “sometimescalled The False True Lover. It is made up of a sequence oflyrical verses like aphorisms, liable to float from song to song.In this case the ‘floaters’ are grouped round the famous shoe-glove-father dialogue that is such a memorable part of theold Scots ballad, The Lass of Roch Royal (Child 76), a dia-logue that forms the centre-point of so many American lovelyrics from Maine to Mississippi.” Here both Watsons do someeffectively subdued fingerpicking.

Black Mountain RagClosing with the flatpickers’ national anthem is an ap-

propriate final note for this look at Doc’s first two decades inthe spotlight. If you compare this ‘encore’ with the BlackMountain Rag of a decade or so earlier on this video youmay find subtle differences emblematic of Doc’s knack forstaying consistent while gathering no moss.

For help with background material, thanks toMary Katherine Aldin, Eugene Earle and Ed Kahn.

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Recording Information

Hootenany (1963)Deep River Blues

Seattle Folklore Society (1967)Nine Pound Hammer

Daniel PrayedPete Seeger's Rainbow Quest (1967)

St. James HospitalHomewood, Los Angeles (1970)

Shady GroveBlack Mountain RagStack O' Lee Blues

Tom DooleySouthbound

Austin City Limits (1978)Way DowntownLonesome Road

Medley: Nancy Roland/Salt CreekI Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground

Sweet Georgia BrownPeach Pickin' Time Down In Georgia

Will The Circle Be UnbrokenRaincrow Bill

Tennessee StudCambridge Folk Festival,

England (1981)Medley: Big Sandy/Bill Cheatham

A Roving On A Winters NightBlack Mountain Rag

The world of American folk music was immeasurablyenriched by the discovery of North Carolina's Doc Watson in1960. He arrived in time to play an active role in the thenbooming folk revival, where he showed a generation of guitaristshow to play traditional music with fresh drive and imagination.After Doc, the old ‘strum-and-sing’ method no longer sufficed.

This collection of rarely seen video performances illustratesthe power and range of Doc's talents and the evolution of hisperformance style. His music ranges from flatpicking guitarinstrumentals, a harmonica solo, a capella gospel singing, frailingbanjo to fingerstyle guitar and warm vocals. The tapestry ofsounds Doc wove during his first two decades performing outsideNorth Carolina – the Big Picture – unfolds in these enduringlyand inspiring performances.

Tunes include: Deep River Blues, Nine Pound Hammer,Daniel Prayed, St. James Hospital, Shady Grove, Black MountainRag, Stack O' Lee Blues, Tom Dooley, Southbound, WayDowntown, Lonesome Road, Medley: Nancy Roland/Salt Creek,I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground, Sweet Georgia Brown, PeachPickin' Time Down In Georgia, Will The Circle Be Unbroken,Raincrow Bill, Tennessee Stud, Medley: Big Sandy/Bill Cheatham,A Roving On A Winters Night and Black Mountain Rag.

VESTAPOL 13023ISBN: 1-57940-955-5

Running time: 60 minutes • B/W and ColorFront photo by David Gahr

Back photo by Jim Crouse & Janet ThompsonNationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140

Representation to Music Stores byMel Bay Publications

© 2002 Vestapol ProductionsA division of

Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop, Inc. 0 1 1 67 1 30239 3