[nfbwatlk] Doc Watson article

[Lauren Merryfield]

Hi,
Here is an article I received.  Thanks
Lauren
Doc Watson, a musician whose lightning-fast style of flatpicking 
> influenced
> guitarists around the world, died at a hospital in North Carolina.
>> ALAN MARLER
>> The Associated Press 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, according to a hospital spokeswoman and 
> his
>> manager. 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, even his own grandson, who performed
>> with him.
>> 
>> Richard Watson said in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press that 
> his
>> grandfather's playing had a humbling effect on other musicians. The
>> ever-humble Doc Watson found it hard to believe.
>> 
>> "Everybody that's picked with you says you intimidate them, and that
>> includes some of the best," Richard Watson told him.
>> 
>> 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 the age of 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 for his late son Merle.
>> 
>> He came from a musical family - his father was active in the church 
> choir
>> and played banjo and his mother sang secular and religious songs,
>> according to a statement from Folklore Productions, his management 
> company
>> since 1964.
>> 
>> Doc Watson's father gave him a harmonica as a young child, and by 5 he 
> was
>> playing the banjo, according to the Merlefest website. He learned a few
>> guitar chords while attending the North Carolina Morehead School for 
> the
>> Blind in Raleigh, and his father helped him buy a Stella guitar for 
> $12.
>> 
>> "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.
>> 
>> According to the Encyclopedia of Country Music, Watson took his 
> nickname
>> at age 19 when someone couldn't pronounce his name and a girl in the
>> audience shouted "Call him Doc!"
>> 
>> Seven of his albums won Grammy awards; 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.
>> 
>> Folklore described Watson as "a powerful singer and a tremendously
>> influential picker who virtually invented the art of playing mountain
>> fiddle tunes on the flattop guitar."
>> 
>> 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. "Since the beginning, the people of the 
> college
>> and I have agreed that the music of MerleFest is 'traditional plus.'"
>> 
>> Doc Watson has said that when Merle died, he lost the best friend he 
> would
>> ever have.
>> 
>> He also relied on his wife, Rosa Lee, whom he married in 1947.
>> 
>> "She saw what little good there was in me, and there was little," 
> Watson
>> told the AP in 2000. "I'm awful glad she cared about me, and I'm awful
>> glad she married me."
>> 
>> In a PBS NewsHour interview before a January appearance in Arlington, 
> Va.,
>> Watson recalled his father teaching him how to play harmonica to a tune
>> his parents had sung in church, as well as his first bus trip to New 
> York
>> City. Telling the stories in a folksy manner, he broke into a quiet 
> laugh
>> at various points. He said he still enjoyed touring.
>> 
>> "I love music and love a good audience and still have to make a 
> living,"
>> Watson said. "Why would I quit?"
>> 
>> 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 was also 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," Bush said. "I 
> never
>> met a more generous kind of musician. He is more about the musical
>> communication than showing off with hot licks."
>> 
>> His blindness didn't hold him back musically or at home.
>> 
>> Joe Newberry, a musician and spokesman for the N.C. Department of 
> Cultural
>> Resources, remembered once when his wife called the Watson home. Rosa 
> Lee
>> Watson said her husband was on the roof, replacing shingles. His 
> daughter
>> Nancy Watson said her father built the family's utility shed.
>> 
>> Guitarist Pete Huttlinger of Nashville, Tenn., said Doc Watson made 
> every
>> song his own, regardless of its age. 'He's one of those lucky guys," 
> said
>> Huttlinger, who studied Watson's methods when he first picked up a 
> guitar.
>> "When he plays something, he puts his stamp on it - it's Doc Watson."
>> 
>> He changed folk music forever by adapting fiddle tunes to guitar at
>> amazing tempos, Huttlinger said. "And people all over the place were
>> trying to figure out how to do this," he said. "But Doc, he set the bar
>> for everyone. He said, 'This is how it goes.' And people have been 
> trying
>> for years to match that.
>> 
>> "He took it (the guitar) out of the background and brought it upfront 
> as a
>> melody instrument. We're no longer at the back of the class. He gave 
> the
>> front to us."
>> 
>> Wayne Martin, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council, 
> said
>> recently that Watson took southern Appalachian forms of music such as
>> balladry, old-time string music and bluegrass, and made them 
> accessible.
>> 
>> "He takes old music and puts his own creativity on it," Martin said. 
> "It
>> retained its core, yet it felt relevant to people today."
>> 
>> Said Bush: "I don't think anyone personifies what we call Americana 
> more
>> than Doc Watson."
>> 
>> In 2011, a life-size statue of Watson was dedicated in Boone, N.C., at 
> the
>> spot where Watson had played decades earlier for tips to support his
>> family, according to the Folklore statement. At Watson's request the
>> inscription read, "Just One of the People."

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