“Deep River Blues” began as “I’ve Got the Big River Blues,” written and recorded by the Delmore Brothers in 1933. The Delmores’ version is sweet and bluesy, an intimate piece typical of their guitar-centered brother-duet sound.
Doc Watson heard the Delmore Brothers’ record as a young man and never forgot it. When he recorded the song on his 1964 solo debut, he reworked it — renaming “Big River” as “Deep River” and applying the rolling, syncopated fingerpicking he had absorbed from the playing of Merle Travis.
Watson’s version became one of the defining showpieces of fingerstyle guitar, so closely identified with him that it is often mistaken for his own composition. Through him “Deep River Blues” entered the standard repertoire of acoustic and bluegrass guitarists.
