Doc Watson

For more than four decades, Arthel "Doc" Watson has been America's most renowned and influential folk guitar stylist. Now 85 years of age, his performances show no signs of his enormous talents being dimmed by age. At any given Doc Watson concert, one will see and hear not only a guitar player of the finest caliber, but also an intelligent, witty, down-to-earth "man of the mountains" who loves to share the music of his heart and home. Doc is an extraordinary entertainer who never fails to capture the admiration and affection of his audience. His concerts are filled with hot flat-picking tunes, slow romantic ballads, gutsy blues numbers, delicately picked melodies, and an old time gospel song or two. Each song is sung with unmatched clarity and each tune played with a dexterity that has placed Doc Watson's name in the music history books.

Doc did not set out from his Appalachian mountain home to become a famous musician. In fact, if given a choice, he never would have struck it out on the road to make a living as a performer. While music would have been an important part of his life regardless of his vocation Watson's calling of choice would have been carpentry, electrical work, mechanics, or even engineering. Sadly, a childhood eye infection, exacerbated by a congenital vascular disorder near his eyes, took Doc's vision by the time he was a year old. Doc has always referred to his blindness only as a hindrance, not a disability. He would tell you; however, that one of the very few regrets of his long and productive life is not having been blessed with the ability to see the smiles on the faces of his loved ones.

Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was born in the Stoney Fork Township, near what is now Deep Gap, NC, on March 3, 1923. His father, General Dixon Watson, was a day laborer and farmer who actively sung in the Baptist church and played banjo. His mother, Annie, would often gather the family to sing hymns or read from the Bible. Doc's family members were musically inclined and he remembers, "There was the old phonograph around the house, and, of course, I heard the singing at the church, and my mother sang a few of the old ballads when she'd be knitting some of the boys' overalls or cooking or something or other. Never heard Dad, except when he was singing the good old gospel songs- he was singing when I was in church from the time I could remember- up until he made that little old homemade banjo and taught me a few tunes on it."

Doc's first instrument, brought for him by his father, was the harmonica, which he started playing at around five years of age. By age 11, his musical talent already growing, he had picked up the banjo, made with the help of his grandmother's cat, whose skin became the instrument's head. Doc's conscience is clear on that point, however, because as he remembers "I never knew the animal. I never petted it. I never heard it howl or anything that I remember of it. It just got old and decrepit and couldn't eat and was blind, and it was miserable. Dad persuaded my brother to put it out of its misery. And he did it without making it suffer."

Continued...