Doc Watson at Gerdes Folk City collects live recordings from Doc Watson’s first solo engagements at Gerde’s Folk City, the Greenwich Village club, in late 1962 and early 1963. Ralph Rinzler arranged the first booking, two weeks in December 1962. Watson, blind since childhood, had played electric guitar in a rockabilly band in North Carolina and had appeared in New York with his father-in-law, Gaither Carlton, and in Clarence Ashley’s band; at Gerde’s he played a borrowed Gibson.
Peter K. Siegel, then a young folk enthusiast, recorded the shows. He later produced and mastered the CD and wrote its liner notes. Sugar Hill released it on 11 September 2001 (SUG-CD 3934), and none of the tracks had appeared before. The fifteen tracks include “Little Sadie,” “The House Carpenter,” “The Roving Gambler,” “The Lone Pilgrim” and “The Dream of the Miner’s Child,” along with Merle Travis’s “Blue Smoke” and “Cannonball Rag,” W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” and Kokomo Arnold’s “Milk Cow Blues.”
Watson is on guitar throughout, with banjo on “The Wagoner’s Lad” and mandolin on “Liberty.” John Herald, who also introduces Watson on one track, sings and plays guitar with him on “Sing Song Kitty,” and Bob Yellin adds banjo on “Tragic Romance.” The release was part of the First Time North project, a series of archival recordings of the earliest urban performances of blues, bluegrass and folk musicians.
Tracklist
- 1 Little Sadie alt version 2:46
- 2 Blue Smoke 2:12
- 3 St. Louis Blues 2:37
- 4 John Herald Introduction 0:40
- 5 Sing Song Kitty - Live 2:51
- 6 The House Carpenter alt version 3:54
- 7 Liberty alt version 4:11
- 8 The Old Wooden Rocker 3:06
- 9 Milk Cow Blues 2:10
- 10 Tragic Romance alt version 2:37
- 11 The Dream Of The Miner's Child - Live 3:07
- 12 The Wagoner's Lad 3:20
- 13 Cannonball Rag 1:54
- 14 The Lone Pilgrim 4:27
- 15 The Roving Gambler alt version 2:29
