Postlude: Remembering Doc
Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012)
If there are patron saints for this blog, Doc Watson is one of them, at least for me. With apologies to my dad, who was the acoustic guitar player with whom I was most familiar as a child, there was a time in my early life that Doc Watson pretty much defined guitar playing. His version of “Wabash Cannonball” was canonical as far as I was concerned; and, for some reason, “The Train that Carried My Girl from Town” captured my imagination. I think it had something to do with the snappy, yet dire, wishes directed toward the engineer and the fireman.
Although I never saw him in person, Doc also sounded just a little bit, and looked just a little bit, like my paternal grandfather–at least he did to me when I was a kid. There was also a similar gentle spirit and sense of humor. As David Holt reflects, in this excellent and moving NPR obituary, Doc brought a certain intensity and a fierce approach to his music, to his playing, but it was focused on the music. By personal disposition and manner, you got the sense that it really wasn’t in Doc to be unkind to anybody.
Although I never saw him in person, Doc also sounded just a little bit, and looked just a little bit, like my paternal grandfather–at least he did to me when I was a kid. There was also a similar gentle spirit and sense of humor. As David Holt reflects, in this excellent and moving NPR obituary, Doc brought a certain intensity and a fierce approach to his music, to his playing, but it was focused on the music. By personal disposition and manner, you got the sense that it really wasn’t in Doc to be unkind to anybody.
There are already thorough obituaries of Doc’s life and career, and will likely be more. I won’t make too much of an attempt to recreate that kind of work here. I’ll focus instead on a few thoughts related to Doc’s stature in the murder ballad tradition, offer some personal reflections, and then invite your comments about Doc’s career or the significance his music has for you. I’ll acknowledge that murder ballads were not the majority report of Doc’s music, but they were a significant part, and I think they related strongly to everything else he performed.
The Real Deal
That that same gentle spirit was a conduit for the the murder ballad traditions of Appalachia and the Piedmont is the first striking thing about Doc’s position in the American musical universe. Given the personality that came across in Doc’s performances generally, in his quiet comments between songs, murder ballads, particularly ones as grisly as “The Lawson Family Murder” seemed at first look to be an odd contrast.
But, as Ralph Rinzler indicates in his liner notes to The Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, he came by this material honestly: And, you can tell in his performances that he approached these songs with respect and care.
Rinzler writes this of one of their early meetings:
But, as Ralph Rinzler indicates in his liner notes to The Original Folkways Recordings of Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, he came by this material honestly: And, you can tell in his performances that he approached these songs with respect and care.
Rinzler writes this of one of their early meetings:
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| Doc Watson, Clarence “Tom” Ashley, and Gaither Carlton |
“The next day was devoted to Doc’s family. Present were his wife, RosaLee, children Nancy and Merle, and RosaLee’s father, Gaither Carlton. After meeting the family, Gene Earle and I explained our interest in the traditional music of the area. From the Anthology [of American Folk Music] we played an archaic-sounding recording of the ballad ‘Omie Wise.’ All listened intently. Gaither, in his denim bib overalls, had come straight from his garden. As the song ended, tears were streaming down his face. No one spoke. Gaither sighed and said quietly, as though to himself, ‘Sounds like old times.’ The vocal had been accompanied only by a solo, reedy fiddle. The performance, recorded in 1927, was by George Banman Grayson, a blind fiddler who had died in an auto accident a few years after the recording session. G.B. Grayson was kin to Sheriff Grayson who had captured Tom Dooley not far from where we were sitting at that moment. Members of Doc and Gaither’s family had known the principals in the Dooley case, and Banman Grayson himself had been a friend of Gaither’s.”
Rinzler’s account of first meeting Doc Watson and convincing him to put aside the electric guitar is fascinating. At the time, Doc was making something of a living playing country and rockabilly tunes in regional performances mostly around North Carolina and Tennessee. It seems to have involved some amount of persuasion on Rinzler’s part that it was these older songs, songs of Doc’s parents’ generation and older, that were of more interest, at least for some audiences. It’s a good thing Rinzler succeeded. Doc became famous because he was able to elevate the local and traditional as opposed to more popular commercial styles of music. He found his niche.
It’s also fair to say that he softened the edges of old time music, and made it more palatable for his audiences, with his mellow baritone and his incredibly deft approach to the guitar. We’ve noted this before, in contrasting Doc’s performance of “Omie Wise,” for example, with Doug Wallin’s, or in his approach to “Matty Groves.”
Father and Son
As I moved away from traditional music in my teen years, Doc probably came back briefly onto my radar at the time of the tragic death of his son, Merle. Doc and Merle had performed a good bit together, recording 15 albums between 1973 and 1985, and their collaboration on “Tennessee Stud” on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972) helped sustain Doc’s income as a musician as many of the audiences that had followed him and supported him in the early 60s turned their attention elsewhere in the late 60s and early 70s.
It’s also fair to say that he softened the edges of old time music, and made it more palatable for his audiences, with his mellow baritone and his incredibly deft approach to the guitar. We’ve noted this before, in contrasting Doc’s performance of “Omie Wise,” for example, with Doug Wallin’s, or in his approach to “Matty Groves.”
Father and Son
As I moved away from traditional music in my teen years, Doc probably came back briefly onto my radar at the time of the tragic death of his son, Merle. Doc and Merle had performed a good bit together, recording 15 albums between 1973 and 1985, and their collaboration on “Tennessee Stud” on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken (1972) helped sustain Doc’s income as a musician as many of the audiences that had followed him and supported him in the early 60s turned their attention elsewhere in the late 60s and early 70s.
Watson kept songs in his repertoire after Merle’s death that were closely identified with their performances together. More poignant than “Tennesse Stud” is probably “The Banks of the Ohio“. Certainly not a song of their devising, and he had performed it with others, notably Bill Monroe (listen here), but I would imagine it was a song that brought back memories both sweet and bitter every time. I don’t wish to be maudlin about this, but I do think it would take a tremendous amount of courage to dive back into that shared material–although, perhaps easier with murder ballads, for reasons we’ve discussed before. Given how much material they shared, there probably was no other way.
Doc established two flourishing memorials for his son–the Merlefest music festival, held annually at Wilkes Community College, and the Eddy Merle Watson Garden of the Senses.
The Past Twenty Years
I reengaged with Doc’s music after college, starting with his collaborations with Norman Blake and Tony Rice, and then diving back into Doc’s Folkways material and later commercial recordings.
While hoping for the best, for a recovery, the news reports of Doc’s fall, illness, and surgery, made it difficult not to anticipate this sad turn of events. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that I’ve spilled more than a little ink above, I’m a little bit of a loss to capture the significance of Doc’s passing. Doc for me was a known and reliable source for many of the stories and sounds that are a crucial portion of my musical universe. It’s music I used to listen to when I was 7 on my dad’s old German stereo, or songs I heard from that stereo on public radio programs out of WAMU when I was doing my chores on a Saturday morning. Doc’s music provided for me over the years any number of useful metaphors, including those about death and redemption, and did so with a personal grace and a mastery of the guitar that made those reflections engaging, compelling, and in their own way wondrous.
So, my thoughts feel a bit incomplete at the moment, but Doc’s music has been with us almost from the beginning of this blog, and he will no doubt return to us from time to time. With that, I’m going to wrap up with a short Spotify playlist of murder ballads performed by Doc Watson, and invite you to add your reflections on Doc’s musical legacy. Thanks for reading.
Coda
Doc established two flourishing memorials for his son–the Merlefest music festival, held annually at Wilkes Community College, and the Eddy Merle Watson Garden of the Senses.
The Past Twenty Years
I reengaged with Doc’s music after college, starting with his collaborations with Norman Blake and Tony Rice, and then diving back into Doc’s Folkways material and later commercial recordings.
While hoping for the best, for a recovery, the news reports of Doc’s fall, illness, and surgery, made it difficult not to anticipate this sad turn of events. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that I’ve spilled more than a little ink above, I’m a little bit of a loss to capture the significance of Doc’s passing. Doc for me was a known and reliable source for many of the stories and sounds that are a crucial portion of my musical universe. It’s music I used to listen to when I was 7 on my dad’s old German stereo, or songs I heard from that stereo on public radio programs out of WAMU when I was doing my chores on a Saturday morning. Doc’s music provided for me over the years any number of useful metaphors, including those about death and redemption, and did so with a personal grace and a mastery of the guitar that made those reflections engaging, compelling, and in their own way wondrous.
So, my thoughts feel a bit incomplete at the moment, but Doc’s music has been with us almost from the beginning of this blog, and he will no doubt return to us from time to time. With that, I’m going to wrap up with a short Spotify playlist of murder ballads performed by Doc Watson, and invite you to add your reflections on Doc’s musical legacy. Thanks for reading.
Coda