Most guitarists don't have
to rummage through their memories for long to recall the first time
and place they heard Doc Watson. For young flatpicking phenom Bryan
Sutton, it was the Stomping Ground in Maggie Valley, North Carolina,
when he was about ten years old. "He was the first guitar player I ever
saw live who was doing what I was trying to do," Sutton recalls. "I'd
never heard anybody flatpick like that." Louisiana slide master Sonny
Landreth remembers a show in Lafayette in the early '70s. "He blew me
away," Landreth says. "I came away from that as thrilled with anyone
live as I'd ever heard. At that time I was just playing acoustically.
I don't think I even played my electric guitar for two years. That show
got me even more excited and inspired to go at it." Flatpicking great
Dan Crary says his first time hearing Watson was at a San Francisco
gig in the mid-1960s, when Watson was playing old-time music. "I knew
this was major stuff," Crary says. "The '60s proved that Doc—and
later Doc with [his son] Merle—was really the big bang of flatpicking
music, which is the number one thing that is interesting about him to
me, but certainly not the only thing."
Not the only thing at all.
In a career that's taken him from Deep Gap, North Carolina, to the great
concert halls of the world, Grammy awards, and international adulation,
Doc Watson has emerged as a preeminent American artist and a personification
of all that is sustaining and beautiful about folk music. He is best
known as a pioneering guitar player, both with a "straight pick" and
thumb and fingers. He is also a dynamic old-time banjo picker and harmonica
player. But his secret weapons may be his memorable voice and his way
with a song. In his smoked and sugar-cured baritone, his vast and varied
repertoire, and his ability to put his own stamp on songs old and new,
you can hear the essence of the folk process—the journey of everyday
music from the old world, across the ocean, up to the forests and mountains
of the Appalachians, and back down to the cities and campuses where
successive generations of Americans have embraced and explored their
common musical heritage.
At the core of Watson's
appeal—beyond the talent—is an avuncular, down-home personality
that has remained uncorrupted by decades of attention and praise or
by the march of modernity. The disfigured ego and self-destructive habits
that are sometimes the by-products of fame have not infected Watson,
who still radiates a kindly spirit and worldly wisdom. It's not as if
Watson, who has been blind since infancy, lacks a temper or a competitive
streak, but his capacity for simple delight, profound gratitude, reverent
awe, and neighborly goodwill comes across as a soft presence with granite-hard
foundations.
Though he turned 80 on March
2 of this year, Watson remains visible and active. He reunited with
the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band last year for the third volume of the seminal
roots-country project Will the Circle Be Unbroken. He starred
in a PBS special set to air in June called "Legends of Bluegrass: Three
Pickers," with Ricky Skaggs and Earl Scruggs. And MerleFest, the massive
Americana and bluegrass festival dedicated to the memory of Doc's son
Merle was held for the 16th time in April for tens of thousands of fans.
In addition, Watson was
back in the Grammy hunt this winter with a three-disc project designed
to tell his story and introduce him to future generations. Legacy,
which was named Best Traditional Folk Album, features longtime friend
and collaborator David Holt interviewing Watson for almost two hours,
with musical interludes. The third disc of the set features a "legacy
concert" recorded in Asheville, North Carolina, that shows off Watson's
many sides as a traditional artist, with familiar standards like "Shady
Grove" and "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms" (transcribed on page 58)
and rarities like Roy Acuff's "Just to Ease My Troubled Mind" and Orville
Reed's "The Telephone Girl."
Dan Crary calls Watson "the
old man of our music" and ranks him among the ten most important folk
artists of the 20th century. Bluesman Taj Mahal says Watson holds his
own with any of the giants of the American canon. Songwriter Guy Clark,
in his song "Dublin Blues," equates seeing Michelangelo's David
with hearing Doc Watson play "Columbus Stockade Blues."
Talking with musicians about
Watson is easy. But talking about Watson with the man himself is a bit
of a challenge. He's been cooperating with interviewers for so many
years that he's heard and answered every question too many times. He's
wary, and weary, of being lionized. "I'm not a legend. I'm just someone
who enjoyed the music and who enjoyed playing music," Watson says, stressing
that his chief motive in taking his music out of his home region and
to a recording and touring career was to earn a living for his family,
not to get rich or famous. "If you have a handicap and no other vocation,
you have to live," he says. "And by doing something I dearly love, I
could do that. I'm just one of the people. I sure ain't got my head
in the clouds, and I sure don't feel like a celebrity."
At the same time, Watson
is aware that legions of people have been inspired to learn the guitar
as a result of seeing him play in his dazzling but approachable way.
And that's the sort of appreciation he enjoys. "Now that, to me, is
gratifying," he says. "You feel like people have enjoyed something you
do, and those who have the talent—who want to learn some of it
or learn the guitar because of it—will come out with their own
style. Everyone has feelings about the music that they love enough to
learn. Once they learn a few of my runs and phrasing and listen to other
people who play good guitar, their own style begins to develop."
Thus for guitar players,
Watson's importance can hardly be overstated. As both a fingerpicker
and a flatpicker, Watson has crafted an original voice built on clean,
fast, articulate playing that has rhythmic excitement but a laid-back
feeling as well. Today, even the next generation of young players, who
have titanic role models in guitarists like Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton,
hold special reverence for Doc.
"You hear people talk about
playing your heart out. That's not just an expression," says 21-year-old
Andy Leftwich, an accomplished multi-instrumentalist in Ricky Skaggs'
band. "That's actually the truth. And Doc definitely does that. It's
not about technique and about how many licks you know. It's about being
able to play what you're feeling at that moment. Doc has always been
able to do that."
Many players agree with
Leftwich. As inspiring as Watson's sound is, few have imitated his stiff-wristed
approach, which derives most of its energy from a rapidly rocking elbow.
Watson's style evolved while playing fiddle tunes on electric guitar
in a 1950s dance band and it translated well to the acoustic guitar
when he picked it up again in the '60s. But it's not a style he recommends
to new players. Most guitarists who have learned things from Watson
focus on the feeling he achieves rather than the specific way he attacks
the strings. "The coolest thing about him is his sense of time," says
flatpicker David Grier. "Anybody can copy the notes after a while. But
what sets Doc apart is how he feels those notes and the space between
the notes."
Watson's guitar style is
approachable and relatively easy to learn, Grier maintains. "You can
only be playing a few years and feel like you're ready to tackle one
of his songs. And the beauty of it is that even after you've been playing
for years and years, those songs are still deep enough that an experienced
player can still have fun with them and not get them the way he does
them."
Winfield fingerstyle guitar
champion Richard Smith also marvels at the unique, unforced quality
of Watson's playing. "You've got to constantly listen to what it was
that made you want to start playing," he says. "If you're getting bogged
down with technique and coming up with the flashiest licks, you can
put on a 1960s record of Doc Watson and say, 'Ah, that's why I wanted
to do this.'"
Smith also notes Watson's
remarkable ability to jump fluidly in concert from flatpicking to fingerstyle
and still leave a strikingly individual stamp—in tone, timing,
and phrasing—on the music. "Even though it's a totally different
technique," Smith says, "it still sounds like Doc—that laid-back,
smooth sound."
Few modern guitarists can
claim to have been shaped by Watson's music more than Beppe Gambetta,
who was a teenager in Genoa, Italy, studying traditional and classical
styles when Will the Circle Be Unbroken and other American folk
LPs began sweeping through Europe. "I listened to the live 'Way Downtown'
from the Newport Folk Festival album, and I immediately became a flatpicker,"
says Gambetta. "I dropped every other musical form I loved, because
I thought this was so beautiful for so many reasons."
Gambetta continually meets
people around the world whose lives have been changed by hearing Watson.
"In this modern world, there are ambassadors who are stronger than the
political ambassadors. Doc was such a strong ambassador that I became
morally American, culturally American, and I started to respect and
be involved in the culture of this country because of him."
One embodiment of that ambassadorial
spirit lies in the diversity of Watson's repertoire. His blindness is
both the reason he played professionally (he maintains he never would
have taken that path if sighted) and a metaphor for his outlook on music,
which is keenly attuned and color-blind. He'll sing a Gershwin song,
and then he'll sing the blues. His repertoire is steeped in Jimmie Rodgers
and the Carter Family, but he will also knock off a contemporary Crystal
Gayle song or an English folk ballad older than America itself.
"He was one of the first
country musicians I knew who played Mississippi John Hurt's music,"
says Taj Mahal. "I love what he does there. He plays it by the song.
'Milk Cow Blues'? He knows it. Plays it. He has his own version of it.
That's what I like. Doc always makes it stand up straight. I love the
way he plays. I love the tone of his voice and the cleanness with which
he picks his guitar and the kind of fun he has with the music."
As a result, says Crary,
one of Watson's greatest achievements has been to duck any and all labels.
"Is Doc a folk musician?" Crary asks rhetorically. "Absolutely yes and
also partly not, because he's not that exclusively. Is he a bluegrass
musician? Well, he certainly proved he could play bluegrass with the
Flatt and Scruggs album he did [Strictly Instrumental in 1967].
That's an absolutely brilliant album, but people don't think of him
as a bluegrass artist. Same with blues and rock 'n' roll and everything
else he's done. He's played a little jazz and a little swing. And that's
brilliant. It's made it possible for him to make records in a wider
array of genres than anybody I know. And every one of them is a classic."
Watson's biography has never
been written in full, but his story has often been told by journalists.
As related on Legacy, however, it has a freshness and firsthand
authority usually only heard by the interviewers who have sat with him.
He tells of the dynamics of growing up sixth of nine children and his
life shuttling between the mountains and the state school for the blind
in Raleigh, North Carolina. His blindness stems from an eye infection
he acquired as a baby, and he has no specific visual memories. He heard
his mother sing in church, and his father taught him music on harmonica.
Later his father made him a banjo, worked to buy his first guitar, and
brought home a Victrola, which opened the door to a wealth of music:
Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, John Hurt, gospel, Dixieland jazz,
and Jimmie Rodgers. "I thought we had the king's treasure," Watson recalls.
Once he began to master
the guitar, Watson's style emerged as a combination of Rodgers' flatpicked
bass runs and Maybelle Carter's rhythm/melody blend—taken at fantastic
speeds. "In the late '40s, I began to hear Hank Garland and Grady Martin
do some occasional fiddle tunes on the electric guitar," Watson says.
"And I thought if they can pick fiddle tunes on the electric guitar,
I can learn them on the flattop. And I learned one or two."
In the '50s, Watson played
electric guitar in a local dance band, often playing fiddle music without
the fiddle. "I'd play 'Black Mountain Rag' or even 'Lonesome Road Blues,'"
he recalls. "We'd do about three or four different tunes over a 20-
or 25-minute square dance set. Your arm was broke by the time you got
out, but it was fun, and I got a lot of technical practice."
Folklorist Ralph Rinzler
discovered Watson after looking for and finding Clarence Ashley, a banjo
player who knew Watson. "When he told me that I had something to offer
in the way of entertainment in the folk revival, I was skeptical," Watson
tells Holt on Legacy. "I said, 'People ain't going to sit and listen
to me do that old-time stuff.' He said, 'You'd be surprised.'"
With Rinzler paving the
way, the early days of touring were relatively easy, and Watson's fast-growing
reputation ensured sizable crowds wherever he went. Here the Legacy
CD and booklet work together well to describe the period where Watson
was able to earn his independence through music. He describes his pride
at being able to get off public assistance and pay income taxes for
the first time in the mid-1960s.
It wasn't until the tail
end of the '60s and early '70s, once he'd begun traveling as a duo with
his son Merle, that the dues-paying phase of Doc's career began. "I
never did get used to touring, and it was awfully hard on Merle because
I couldn't share in the driving," Doc recalls. "He drove God knows how
many miles. It's a shame there wasn't enough money to hire a driver.
I was trying to earn a living for my family, and Merle stuck by me,
bless his heart."
In 1972, Nitty Gritty Dirt
Band leader John McEuen asked Watson if he would participate in the
Will the Circle Be Unbroken sessions, and Watson almost declined
because Merle wasn't included. Doc tells Holt how Merle urged him to
go ahead anyway. "He hit it right on the head. It really helped us,"
Doc says. The album was an unlikely hit and turned America's finest
old-time country pickers into household names.
Holt doesn't probe very
deeply into Merle's death in 1985 or how Doc adjusted his career and
life after that seminal event. Doc thinks Merle's skills as a guitar
player have been unjustly overshadowed by his own reputation and that
he never could come close to matching Merle's accomplishments as a slide
player. The most obvious manifestation of Merle's legacy is MerleFest,
which began in 1987 as a small, one-day tribute near Doc's home and
which now sprawls across the campus of Wilkes Community College in North
Wilkesboro, North Carolina, for four days in April. In the way that
MerleFest also sprawls across American roots genres, from Cajun to folk
to hillbilly to bluegrass, it stands as a tribute to Doc's musical eclecticism
as well.
At one point during some
lean times, Merle asked him if he might want to think about "going commercial."
"We could probably do it if we put our minds to it. I believe we've
both learned enough on the guitars," Doc quotes Merle as saying. "Son,"
Doc replied. "You want my honest answer don't you? I don't want no part
of that rat race." And Merle said, "That's my sentiments exactly Dad.
We'll do what we're doing."
Doc clearly trusts the music
he learned as a child. While he is certainly a stylistic innovator,
his advances didn't come from the same defensive place that motivates
the perfection of modern pop recordings. Watson simply feels that the
music he inherited was good for all ages and for all the ages. He feels
instinctively that it is as sturdy and complete as it needs to be. It's
not that there isn't plenty of leeway to put his own stamp on each song
or that new instruments, like electric bass, can't be invited into the
fold. But he never corrupts the essential truth of the music or the
plain beauty of the songs.
The legacy he'll leave to
guitar players obviously pleases him, but Watson is clear in his conversation
with Holt that what he cherishes more is the energy and community of
an audience. He simply loves to play for people, and he likens applause
to a handshake magnified by as many pairs of hands as are in the house.
Under those circumstances, he says, "If you've got any good notes, you're
liable to find them."
Excerpted from
Acoustic
Guitar magazine, June 2003,
No. 126.
