Singer, guitarist, banjo player, mentor to many younger musicians

Born into a musical family on March 3, 1923, in Deep Gap, North Carolina, Doc Watson was blinded in early childhood, due to an infection. He refers to his blindness only as a hindrance, not as a disability. Interviews with Doc reveal he was just as curious and rambunctious as any other sighted boy in Deep Gap, NC….a small unincorporated place near the Blue Ridge Parkway in upper eastern part of Western North Carolina region. In this interview with David Holt, Doc talks about how it was for him as a blind child.

At 11, Doc’s father (General Dixon Watson) hand-crafted him a cigar box banjo to pluck out tunes. By 13, Doc found his true love – the guitar. Though the strings were fretless and stubborn, Doc persisted, guided by the sweet mountain melodies of the Carter Family floating through the family radio.

He practiced their signature style, thumbing the bass strings as Maybelle did while strumming a rhythm with his nimble fingers. When the train-whistle voice of Jimmie Rodgers came crooning over the airwaves, Doc added those rousing strums to his repertoire. At 13 he could pick out the chords of When the Roses Bloom in Dixieland for his delighted father.

Within six months, Arthel, with his older brother Linney, would pick up spare change busking on the street corners of Raleigh, ultimately earning enough money to buy himself a Martin guitar. By 1941, he was in a band that had a regular gig on a radio show produced out of Lenoir, North Carolina. At one of those live shows, the announcer said that Arthel was no kind of name for a performer and dubbed him Doc. Arthel was no more, and “Doc” Watson lived on.

In 1960, the folklorist Ralph Rinzler traveled to North Carolina to record Clarence Ashley, who Watson was playing with. When he encountered Watson, Rinzler, who would go on to co-found the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC, initially dismissed Watson as being more into flashy, modern, electric music. However, after seeing him play the traditional tunes of the region, his mind was changed. Rinzler recorded Doc playing with Clarence Ashley, launching him to overnight folk fame. Doc lit up stages nationwide with his pristine flatpicking, honeyed voice, and authentic mountain sound, culminating at the iconic 1963 Newport Folk Fest.

Doc teamed up with his son Merle, winning Grammys and touring extensively. Their string-bending duets were the real deal, ringing true as the Carolina hills they came from. No frills, no flash – just honest mountain soul that harkened back to front porch jams before sequins and stadiums changed how fans experienced music.

Their names stood proud on that landmark double LP alongside the legends – Doc and Merle Watson right up there with Earl Scruggs, Mother Maybelle, and the rest. The folk revival of the ’60s began to fade, but Doc and Merle kept their unique style despite the fading folk revival, taking home twin Grammys as they stayed on the road.

Merle died while working the family farm; the tractor he was operating flipped, the most common way agricultural workers are killed on the farm. The news hit Doc hard; the loss was devastating. In the depths of grief, he saw Merle’s likeness in a dream – “Take my hand, Pops. Keep our sound alive.”

That dream jolted Doc out of the depths of despair and back to performing his phenomenal musical gifts. His fingers and voice found purpose, to carry on as Merle asked in the dream, striking up the old tunes they’d played together. No longer buried in soul crippling grief, Doc Watson kept the mission of their “sound alive, wherever he wandered, Merle’s spirit walked by his side. 

Doc and David Holt – Living the Blues

In this short clip Doc tells David Holt how his Dad taught him how to play the harmonica.

MerleFest is a popular festival established by /Doc in memory of his son Merle Watson