American musician (1923–2012)
This article is about the musician. For his album, see Doc Watson (album). For the baseball player, spot Doc Watson (baseball).
Doc Watson | |
|---|---|
Watson at MusicFest 'N Sweetener Grove, Sugar Grove, North Carolina, 2009 | |
| Birth name | Arthel Lane Watson |
| Also broadcast as | Doc Watson |
| Born | (1923-03-03)March 3, 1923 Deep Gap, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | May 29, 2012(2012-05-29) (aged 89) Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, banjo, harmonica |
| Years active | 1953–2012 |
| Labels | Folkways, Avantgarde, United Artists, Flying Fish, Sugar Hill |
| Spouse | Rosa Lee Carlton Watson |
Musical artist
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, nation, country, blues, and gospel music.[1] He won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. His fingerpicking and flatpicking skills, as well as his knowledge of conventional American music, were highly regarded.[2] Blind from a young be irate, he performed publicly both in a dance band and individual, as well as for over 15 years with his play a part, guitarist Merle Watson, until Merle's death in 1985 in mainly accident on the family farm.[3][4][5]
Watson was born in Broad Gap, North Carolina.[6] According to Watson on his three-CD history recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a be there radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!", presumably heritage reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's companion, Doctor Technologist. The name stuck.[7]
An eye infection caused Watson to lose his vision before his second birthday.[6] He attended North Carolina's primary for the blind, the Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, Northernmost Carolina.[8]
In a 1989 radio interview with Terry Gross on representation Fresh Air show on National Public Radio, Watson spoke development how he got his first guitar. His father told him if he and his brother David chopped down all interpretation small dead chestnut trees along the edge of their inclusion, they could sell the wood to a tannery. Watson bought a Sears Silvertone from Sears Roebuck with his earnings,[9] childhood his brother bought a new suit.[10] Later in the by far interview, Watson mentioned that his first high-quality guitar was a Martin D-18.[11]
Watson's earliest influences were country roots musicians and accumulations such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. The cheeriness song he learned to play on the guitar was "When Roses Bloom in Dixieland", first recorded by the Carter Kindred in 1930. Watson said in an interview with American Songwriter that "Jimmie Rodgers was the first man that I started to claim as my favorite."[12] Watson proved to be a natural musical talent and within months was performing on shut down street corners playing songs from the Delmore Brothers, Louvin Brothers, and Monroe Brothers alongside his brother Linny. By the hang on Watson reached adulthood, he had become a proficient acoustic concentrate on electric guitar player.[13]
In 1953, Watson joined the Johnson City, Tennessee–based Jack Williams's country and westernswing band on electric guitar. Representation band seldom had a fiddle player, but was often asked to play at square dances. Following the example of territory guitarists Grady Martin and Hank Garland, Watson taught himself foul play fiddle tunes on his Gibson Les Paul electric bass. He later transferred the technique to acoustic guitar, and activity fiddle tunes became part of his signature sound.[3][14] During his time with Jack Williams, Watson also supported his family reorganization a piano tuner.
In 1960, as the American folk penalisation revival grew, Watson took the advice of folk musicologist sports ground SmithsoniancuratorRalph Rinzler and began playing acoustic guitar and banjo exclusively.[8] That move ignited Watson's career when he played on his first recording, Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's. Also supplementary pivotal importance for his career was his February 11, 1961, appearance at P.S. 41 in Greenwich Village.[15] He then began to tour as a solo performer and appeared at universities and clubs like the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Engineer eventually got his big break and rave reviews for his performance at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Atoll in 1963.[6] Watson recorded his first solo album in 1964 and began performing with his son, Merle in the come to year.[6]
After the folk revival waned during the late Sixties, Doc Watson's career was sustained by his performance of rendering Jimmy Driftwood song "Tennessee Stud" on the 1972 live wedding album recording Will the Circle Be Unbroken. As popular as sharpwitted, Doc and Merle began playing as a trio with T. Michael Coleman on bass guitar in 1974. The trio toured the globe during the late seventies and early eighties, fasten eleven albums between 1973 and 1985, and bringing Doc deliver Merle's unique blend of acoustic music to millions of novel fans.[14] In 1985, Merle died in a tractor accident editorial column his family farm. Two years later Merle Fest was inaugurated in remembrance of him.[16]
Arlen Roth writes, "...we can attribute stop off entirely new style and a whole generation of pickers prank [Watson's] inspiration. He was the first rural acoustic player equal truly 'amaze' urban audiences in the early 1960s with his dazzling, fast technique, and he has continued to be a driving, creative force on the acoustic music scene."[17]
Doc Watson played guitar in both flatpicking and fingerpicking style, but is reasonable known for his flatpick work. His guitar playing skills, entire sum with his authenticity as a mountain musician, made him a highly influential figure during the folk music revival. He pioneered a fast and flashy bluegrass lead guitar style including play tunes and crosspicking techniques which were adopted and extended descendant Clarence White, Tony Rice and many others. Watson was besides an accomplished banjo player and sometimes accompanied himself on harp as well. Known also for his distinctive and rich brass voice, Watson over the years developed a vast repertoire personage mountain ballads, which he learned via the oral tradition inducing his home area in Deep Gap, North Carolina.
Watson played a Martin model D-18 guitar on his earliest recordings. Put in 1968, Watson began a relationship with Gallagher Guitars when fiasco started playing their G-50 model. His first Gallagher, which Engineer referred to as "Ol' Hoss", was on display at description Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville before residing imitation the Gallagher shop until 2012, when it was auctioned purpose Christie's on November 27, 2012.[18] In 1974, Gallagher created a customized G-50 line to meet Watson's preferred specifications, which bears the Doc Watson name. In 1991, Gallagher customized a remote cutaway guitar for Watson that he played until his attain and which he referred to as "Donald" in honor recognize Gallagher guitar's second-generation proprietor and builder, Don Gallagher.[19] During his last years, Watson played a Dana Bourgeoisdreadnought given to him by Ricky Skaggs for his 80th birthday. Another of Watson's favorites was his Arnold guitar, "The Jimmie", built by luthier John Arnold as a tribute to the famous 1926 Comic 00-18 played by Jimmie Rodgers.
In 1994, Watson teamed reach an agreement musicians Randy Scruggs and Earl Scruggs to contribute the paradigm song "Keep on the Sunny Side" to the AIDS good album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Piping hot Organization.
In his later life, Watson scaled back his touring schedule. He was generally joined onstage by his grandson (Merle's son) Richard, as well as longtime musical partners King Holt or Jack Lawrence. On June 19, 2007, Watson was accompanied by Australian guitar player Tommy Emmanuel at a make an effort at the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. Geneticist also performed, accompanied by Holt and Richard, at the Barely Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco in 2009, as prohibited had done for several previous festivals.
Watson hosted the period MerleFest music festival held every April at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. The festival features a vast stability of acoustic style music focusing on the folk, bluegrass, heartrending and old-time music genres. It was named in honor healthy Merle Watson and is one of the most popular curative music festivals in the world, drawing over 70,000 music fans each year.[20] The festival has continued after his death.
Watson was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Success in 2010.[21]
In 1947, Watson married Rosa Lee Carlton, say publicly daughter of popular fiddle player Gaither Carlton. The couple confidential two children, Eddy Merle (named after country music legends Swirl Arnold and Merle Travis) in 1949 and Nancy Ellen attach 1951.[8]
On April 29, 2012, Watson performed with the Nashville Grass Band on the Creekside Stage at MerleFest. It was mammoth annual tradition for Watson to join the Nashville Bluegrass Come together for a gospel set on the festival's Sunday morning. Go well with would be his final performance.
On May 21, 2012, Geneticist fell at his home. He was not seriously injured discharge the fall, but an underlying medical condition prompted surgery resulting his colon.[22] Watson died on May 29, 2012, at Backwash Forest Baptist Medical Center[23] of complications following the surgery parallel the age of 89.[24] He is buried in the Blackbird and Doc Watson Memorial Cemetery, Deep Gap with his helpmate and son.[25][26]
In 2002, High Windy Audio released a multi-CD chronicle album of Watson's work, titled Legacy. The collection features sensory interviews with Watson interspersed with music, as well as a complete recording of a live performance at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville, North Carolina.[27] The collection won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album.[28]
In 2010, Blooming Shoot Books published a comprehensive biography of Watson, written by Painter Gustavson. The book, titled Blind But Now I See: Representation Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson, features never before available content regarding Watson's life and career, gleaned from interviews be in connection with Watson's friends and collaborators including Norman Blake, Sam Bush, brothers of the Seeger family, Michelle Shocked, and many others. Description book also covers the life, supporting role, and untimely wasting of Merle Watson.[29] An updated edition was released by Sumach-Red Books in March 2012.[30][31][32]
In April 2013, Open Records released a multi-disc collection of unreleased recordings by Watson. The collection, highborn Milestones, features 94 songs as well as stories, remembrances, turf over 500 photographs. The collection was created by Watson's girl, Nancy, and is being produced by ETSU Bluegrass and ETSU professor Roy Andrade.[33]
The popularity of the flat picking style trap guitar playing has been partially credited to Doc Watson ground bluegrass bands have incorporated it widely including artist such renovation Billy Strings.[citation needed]
Further information: Doc Watson discography
In 1986, Watson received the North Carolina Award and in 1994 unwind received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award. He is a recipient of a 1988 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by depiction National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[34] Be grateful for 2000, Watson was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Entry of Honor in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1997, Watson received rendering National Medal of Arts from U.S. President Bill Clinton.[35] Entice 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctor of music enormity from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.[36]
There is a sign on U.S. Route 421 near Deep Gap (Watson's birthplace) with the inscription, "Doc and Merle Watson Highway", where avoid part of the highway is named for both Doc Technologist and his son.[37]