Songs from the Southern Mountains (Sugar Hill SH-CD-3829, 1994) is an archival release capturing the Watson family of Deep Gap, North Carolina in an informal home and community setting before Doc Watson's national prominence had arrived. Recorded by Eugene Earle and D.K. Wilgus in the early 1960s, the album documents Doc Watson on guitar, banjo, harmonica, and vocals alongside his father-in-law Gaither Carlton on fiddle, his brother Arnold Watson on banjo and vocals, and his wife Rosa Lee Watson on guitar and vocals. Arkansas ballad singer Almeda Riddle — one of the folk revival's most significant discoveries — also appears. The Sugar Hill release restored this material to circulation in 1994, preserving an intimate picture of the Watson household's musical life before the Newport Folk Festival, the folk revival, and Doc's own guitar mastery transformed him into an international figure.
Tracklist
- 1 Rye Cove 2:23
- 2 Twilight Is Stealing 2:28
- 3 Fisher’s Hornpipe alt version 2:48
- 4 Anniversary Blue Yodel 2:11
- 5 A Tiny Broken Heart alt version 3:04
- 6 Honey Babe Blues 2:30
- 7 Brown's Dream 1:49
- 8 When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder 3:22
- 9 My Little Woman, You're So Sweet 2:24
- 10 Will My Mother Know Me There? 3:34
- 11 Go Shoot Old Davey Dugger 1:36
- 12 Out in the Cold World alt version 3:10
- 13 Somebody Touched Me alt version 2:13
- 14 Grandfather’s Clock alt version 3:23
- 15 Lonely Tombs 3:06
- 16 Just A Friend 3:21