We were fortunate to see Doc Watson perform at Merlefest and numerous times at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. He always put on a great show. Known especially for his guitar picking, he also had one of the very best voices in folk music.
I’ve mentioned some recommended songs previously on the Low-Tech Times including my favorite Doc Watson tune Streamlined Cannonball. Doc Watson is also featured on the all-time great album Will The Circle Be Unbroken as well as The Three Pickers.
I want to also take time to highly recommend the album Home Sweet Home – Doc & Merle Watson, which features several great tunes with Doc on guitar and his late son Merle on banjo.
The Washington Post has a nice obituary for Doc Watson:
“He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flat-picking and finger-picking guitar performance,” the late Ralph Rinzler, an influential folklorist who first recorded Mr. Watson in the early 1960s, once wrote. “His flat-picking style has no precedent in earlier country music history.”
…He was best known, however, for his old-timey music — the fiddle tunes that he adapted for the guitar…
I like to think he’s joined the picking party in heaven with Earl Scruggs…
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