Bill and Doc Sing Country Songs

Bill and Doc Sing Country Songs pairs two of the most important figures in American roots music — Bill Monroe, the architect of bluegrass, and Doc Watson, the guitarist and song repository from Deep Gap, North Carolina — on a program of country and folk material recorded for Decca in the mid-1970s. The collaboration is relaxed and conversational, with Monroe's high tenor and Watson's warmer baritone trading off across a set that draws on the shared rural repertoire both men had absorbed since childhood. Watson's guitar work grounds the arrangements while Monroe's mandolin is used selectively. The record is more informal than either artist's solo output, which gives it a session-room intimacy unusual in both catalogs. As a document of two creative generations in dialogue, it holds enduring interest for anyone tracing the roots of bluegrass and old-time music back through their common ancestors.