WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Doc Watson, the Grammy-award winning folk musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking influenced guitarists around the world for more than a half-century, died Tuesday at a hospital in Winston-Salem. He was 89.
Watson, who was blind from age 1, recently had abdominal surgery that resulted in his hospitalization.
Arthel “Doc” Watson’s mastery of flatpicking helped make the case for the guitar as a lead instrument in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was often considered a backup for the mandolin, fiddle or banjo. His fast playing could intimidate other musicians.
Doc Watson was born March 3, 1923, in what is now Deep Gap, N.C., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He lost his eyesight by age 1 when he developed an eye infection that was worsened by a congenital vascular disorder, according to a website for Merlefest, the annual musical gathering named after his late son, Merle.
Doc Watson’s father gave him a harmonica as a young child, and by 5, he was playing the banjo. He learned a few guitar chords while attending the North Carolina Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, and then his father helped him buy a guitar for $12, the website says.
“My real interest in music was the old 78 records and the sound of the music,” Doc Watson is quoted as saying on the website. “I loved it and began to realize that one of the main sounds on those old records I loved was the guitar.”
Doc Watson got his musical start in 1953, playing electric lead guitar in a country-and-western swing band. His road to fame began in 1960 when Ralph Rinzler, a musician who also managed Bill Monroe, discovered Watson in North Carolina. That led Watson to the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 and his first recording contract a year later. He went on to record 60 albums.
Seven of his albums won Grammys; his eighth Grammy was a lifetime-achievement award in 2004. He also received the National Medal of the Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997.
“There may not be a serious, committed baby boomer alive who didn’t at some point in his or her youth try to spend a few minutes at least trying to learn to pick a guitar like Doc Watson,” Clinton said at the time.
Doc Watson’s son Merle began recording and touring with him in 1964. But Merle Watson died at age 36 in a 1985 tractor accident, sending his father into deep grief and making him consider retirement. Instead, he kept playing and started Merlefest, an annual musical event in Wilkesboro, N.C., that raises money for a community college there and celebrates “traditional plus” music.
“When Merle and I started out, we called our music ‘traditional plus,’ meaning the traditional music of the Appalachian region plus whatever other styles we were in the mood to play,” Doc Watson is quoted as saying on the festival’s website.
Musician Sam Bush, who has performed at every Merlefest, began touring with Doc and Merle Watson in 1974, occasionally substituting for Merle when he couldn’t travel.
“I would sit next to Doc, and I would be influenced by his incredible timing and taste,” Bush said after Watson’s recent surgery. “He seems to always know what notes to play. They’re always the perfect notes. He helped me learn the space between the notes (are) as valuable as the ones you play.”
Bush said he also was intimidated when he began playing with the man he calls “the godfather of all flatpickers. But Doc puts you at ease about that kind of stuff.”
Guitarist Pete Huttlinger of Nashville, Tenn., said Watson
changed folk music forever by adapting fiddle tunes to guitar at amazing tempos.
“He took it (the guitar) out of the background and brought it upfront as a melody instrument.”
Said Bush:
“I don’t think anyone personifies what we call Americana more than Doc Watson.”
