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Doc Watson

Doc Watson

Musician · 1923–2012 · Stoney Fork, North Carolina · Also a recording artist
Best known for Guitar

Doc Watson is widely regarded as one of the most influential flatpicking guitarists in American music — the North Carolina musician whose lightning-fast fiddle-tune interpretations on guitar, combined with a deep repertoire of ballads, blues, ragtime, country, and gospel, fundamentally changed how the acoustic guitar was played in folk and bluegrass music. Blind from infancy, he spent the first half of his career in relative obscurity before the 1960s folk revival made him a star at age 38.

  • Born Arthel Lane Watson in the Watauga County, North Carolina mountains. Lost his sight before his first birthday due to an eye infection. Father General Dixon Watson was a farmer and banjo player; mother Annie Greene Watson sang unaccompanied ballads and hymns.
  • Got his first guitar at age 13. Taught himself by listening to Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, the Delmore Brothers, and Riley Puckett 78s. Acquired the nickname “Doc” as a teenager from a radio announcer who couldn't remember “Arthel.”
  • Married Rosa Lee Carlton in 1947; her father Gaither Carlton played old-style fiddle and became a major source for Doc's repertoire.
  • Worked through the 1950s as a country-rockabilly guitarist with Jack Williams's band in Tennessee — playing electric guitar on country hits and covering contemporary material. When the band's regular fiddler dropped out, Doc developed his flatpicking guitar style to play fiddle tunes, creating the technique that would make him famous.
  • Discovered in 1960 by folklorist Ralph Rinzler, who was recording Clarence “Tom” Ashley in Shouns, Tennessee. Rinzler heard Doc playing fiddle tunes on guitar and realized he had found someone remarkable. The resulting Folkways albums (Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's, 1961; The Doc Watson Family, 1963) launched Doc's career.
  • Played the 1961 and 1963 Newport Folk Festivals. Signed with Vanguard Records for his 1964 solo debut. Doc Watson (1964) and Doc Watson and Son (1965, with young Merle) established him as one of the central figures of the folk revival.
  • Won seven Grammy Awards across his career, including Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording (Folk) for Then and Now (1974), Two Days in November (1975), Riding the Midnight Train (1986), and multiple others through the 1990s and 2000s.
  • Appeared on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972), a generationally-important roots-music crossover album that reintroduced bluegrass and traditional country to rock audiences.
  • Son Merle Watson (Eddy Merle, 1949–1985) joined his father's band as guitarist and slide player in the mid-1960s; the Watsons toured as a duo for 20 years. Merle died in a farm tractor accident on October 23, 1985, at age 36 — a loss Doc described as the hardest thing he ever faced.
  • Founded MerleFest in 1988 at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina as a tribute to Merle. It grew into one of the largest roots-music festivals in the United States, drawing 70,000+ attendees annually.
  • Received the National Heritage Fellowship (1988), National Medal of Arts (1997), and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 2000. Awarded honorary doctorates from the University of North Carolina and Appalachian State University.
  • Continued touring into his late 80s with grandson Richard Watson (Merle's son) on guitar. Died May 29, 2012 in Winston-Salem at age 89, after complications from colon surgery.
  • A statue of Doc Watson stands in downtown Boone, North Carolina; the inscription reads simply: “Just one of the people.”

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