Doc Watson Sets Tone for Acoustic Guitarists

Since the early ‘60s, guitar novices have been slowing down Doc Watson albums to figure out just how he crafts those elegantly crisp, tastefully flat-picked melodies. Sure, it was easier in the days of vinyl, when you could go from 33 rpms to whatever molasses speed your turntable could be manhandled into.

So what did Doc Watson himself do in the late ‘30s, when, as a 13-year-old, he first picked up a guitar? Pretty much the same thing, it turns out.

“I’d listen [to 78s], pick up a run and then I’d pick up ‘the old reproducer’ we called it, stop the machine, figure out the lick or the run or get the lyrics, a half or a whole verse, and work on that till I got it down,” Watson recalls from his home in Deep Gap, N.C., where he was born in 1923 and where he still resides.

“One of my favorite deals in learning the lyrics to a song was to get my Braille slate and stylus and sheet of point paper and write the lyrics down, get a line or two at a time off the recording,” says Watson, who has been blind since the age of 1. “By the time you did that and got through listening, you already had the tune down pat in your head. Then you went back and listened to it two or three times to get the background licks on the guitar and the lead notes the way the person played it.

“I learned to play a lot of things like the original recordings,” Watson says. “Then I figured I’d better build on it so I’d be at least halfway original.”

Which Arthel “Doc” Watson is, and no halfway about it. He’s one of a handful of acoustic guitarists whose influence is thankfully matched by both critical acclaim and commercial success. He’s loved by presidents--Jimmy Carter declared Watson a “national treasure,” Bill Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Arts--pickers and just plain folks absorbed by Watson’s easygoing guitar mastery, a warm, virile baritone, and the rich, seemingly bottomless well of traditional Southern rural music that he draws from.

Watson’s journey to the national stage was curiously roundabout. In North Carolina, instrumental virtuosity is often taken for granted and Watson didn’t start playing for money until 1953, when he was already 30. That was when he joined Jack Williams and the Country Gentlemen, a local band playing country and western swing and rockabilly--with Watson playing a Les Paul Standard--an electric guitar.

It was during his seven-year stint with Williams that Watson began to play fiddle tunes on guitar so folks could do a little square-dancing in the clubs. Watson is quick to point out that he wasn’t the first guitarist to do this, that he was inspired by two of Nashville’s finest studio players, Grady Martin and Hank Garland. Watson had first experimented on acoustic guitar in the late ‘40s, but fine-tuned--or fiddle-tuned--the style he became famous for on electric. “I didn’t play those featherweight strings on the Les Paul, I played a Sonomatic Gibson string, which was just a little bit lighter than the regular acoustic string you put on your flattop,” he explains. “So it wasn’t too awfully hard to go back to the acoustic.”

Which is what Watson did in 1960, when Ralph Rinzler came down to North Carolina for Folkways Records to record old-time music with banjo player Clarence “Tom” Ashley, his family and friends--including neighbor Watson, who did not own an acoustic guitar at the time.

In the early years, Watson often toured solo, a hard way for a blind man to earn a living. His attitude toward the road brightened considerably in 1964, when his son, Merle, then 15, became Doc’s picking partner, joining him onstage just three months after picking up a guitar. They did a dozen albums featuring Merle’s stellar slide guitar accompaniment.

Merle Watson was killed in a 1985 tractor accident on his farm; he was 36. Doc Watson has often said that he lost not just his musical partner, but his best friend. His personal memorial is the annual Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. What started in 1988 as a one-day tribute has evolved into one of America’s largest festivals, a star-studded, four-day celebration of acoustic music of all kinds.

Doc Watson can always be found at Merlefest, often sitting in with other performers, including Merle’s son, Richard. “His main thing is the blues sound, the blues style that Merle played,” says Watson of his grandson. “He does a little bit of finger-picking. Richard doesn’t play slide--I don’t know of anybody that’s ever touched Merle’s slide.”

It would be harder to find anybody who’s touched Doc Watson’s guitar playing. There have been some who have matched his technical facility and grace, but few who have approached Watson’s expressive abilities or the emotional conviction he brings to his playing and singing.

“That’s what my feelings are about playing music on the guitar, the feeling that comes out,” Watson says. “If a fella can play music on a guitar that shows exactly what he feels inside, then he’s accomplished something.”