Watson, Doc (Arthel Lane)

Watson, DOC (Arthel Lane), American guitarist, singer, and banjo player; b. near Deep Gap, N.C., March 3, 1923. Watson gained renown as a flat-picking guitarist during the folk boom of the early 1960s, due to his virtuosity and extensive knowledge of traditional folk songs and old-time country music. Usually accompanied by his son Merle from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, he toured and recorded extensively, keeping a rural musical tradition alive and influencing a generation of upcoming country and bluegrass musicians.

Watson was the son of General Dixon Watson, a farmer, and Annie Greene Watson. He lost his sight during infancy. Most of the members of his family were musical, and several of them eventually recorded with him, including his mother, who taught him hymns and traditional songs. His father sang and played the banjo, and he built a banjo for Watson when the boy was 11. At 13 he bought his first guitar. He first played in public at a fiddler’s convention in Boone, N.C., when he was 17, and at 18 he was part of a group that played on a local radio station. Around 1947 he married Rosa Lee Carlton, the daughter of fiddler Gaither W. Carlton, from whom he learned many traditional songs. He and his wife had two children, the first of whom was his son Eddy Merle Watson, known as Merle, born Feb. 8,1949.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Watson earned his living tuning pianos. Around 1953 he met pianist Jack Williams, who hired him to play electric guitar in a band that performed contemporary country and popular music around western N.C and Term.; he stayed with this band for the rest of the 1950s. In the summer of 1960, folklorists Ralph Rinzler and Eugene Earle came to N.C. to record Watson’s neighbor, Clarence Ashley, and in so doing discovered Watson, who played in Ashley’s string band. The session led to the Folkways Records album Ola-Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s, released in 1961, and to a concert appearance at Town Hall in N.Y. in March 1961. The group recorded a second volume of music for Folkways and in May 1962 traveled to Los Angeles to appear at the Ash Grove folk club. In December 1962, Watson debuted as a solo performer at Gerde’s Folk City in N.Y. He made several recordings for Folkways and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1963.

Watson signed to Vanguard Records in 1964 and released his debut album for the label, Doc Watson, in September. Meanwhile, his teenage son Merle had taken up the guitar, and he became his father’s backup musician and aide, enabling the blind musician to tour extensively. His next album, released in June 1965, was called Doc Watson and Son, and Merle Watson played with him on record and in concert for the next 20 years. They recorded an average of one album a year for Vanguard through 1971. In 1967, Watson accompanied Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs on their Columbia Records album Strictly Instrumental, which reached the country charts in June. Doc and Merle Watson toured Africa under the auspices of the State Department in 1968.

At the conclusion of his Vanguard contract, Watson signed to the Poppy Records division of United Artists Records and released Elementary, Doctor Watson!, which became his first country chart album in June 1972. Along with other notable traditional performers, he accompanied the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, released in October 1972, which hit the country Top Ten, went gold, and earned the participants a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Watson again reached the country charts with his next Poppy album, Then and Now, in May 1973, and with the single “Bottle of Wine” (music and lyrics by Tom Paxton) in July; the album won him a Grammy for Best Ethnic or Traditional Recording. He and his son won the same award the following year for their 1974 album Two Days in November. In 1975, Watson switched from Poppy to the main United Artists label and released the two-LP set Memories, produced by his son. The album reached both the pop and country charts in August. Its follow-up, Doc and the Boys, was in the country charts in August 1976.

Watson remained with United Artists through the end of the decade, releasing three more albums: Lonesome Road (1977); Look Away! (1978), featuring the country chart single “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” (music and lyrics by Bob Dylan); and Live and Pickin’ (1979), featuring the track “Big Sandy/Leather Britches,” which won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance, a category in which he was nominated repeatedly in subsequent years. Leaving United Artists, he recorded a duo album with Chet Atkins, Reflections, which made the country charts and earned a Grammy nomination.

Watson moved to the independent folk label Flying Fish in 1981, releasing Red Rocking Chair, which earned him and his son another Grammy nomination for the track “Below Freezing.” The two also were nominated for their 1983 album Doc & Merle Watson’s Guitar Album, for the track “Twin Sisters” from Down South (1984), which marked their move to the independent N.C.-based label Sugar Hill, and for the track “Windy and Warm” from their final Flying Fish album, Pickin’ the Blues (1985).

On Oct. 23, 1985, Merle Watson was killed in a tractor accident. After his death, Watson cut back on his touring, though he still performed regularly, adding Jack Lawrence as second guitarist. His next album, Riding the Midnight Train, won the 1986 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Recording. He ceased recording for a time in the late 1980s, finally returning to the recording studio for two 1990 albums, the gospel collection On Praying Ground, which won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Recording; and Doc Watson Sings for Little Pickers, which was nominated for the Grammy for Best Recording for Children. His 1991 album, My Dear Old Southern Home, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Folk Album, but he again refrained from recording until 1995’s rockabilly collection Docabilly, a Grammy nominee for Best Country Instrumental Performance for the track “Thunder Road/Sugarfoot Rag.” He maintained a regular performance schedule into the late 1990s.

Discography

Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s Vol. 1 (1961); Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s Vol. 2 (1963); The Watson Family (1963); Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson at Folk City (1963); Doc Watson (1964); And Son (1965); Southbound (1966); Home Again! (1966); Ballads from Deep Gap (1967); Strictly Instrumental (with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs; 1967); Good Deal: Doc Watson in Nashville (1968); On Stage (1970); Elementary Doc Watson (1972); Then and Now (1973); Two Days in November (1974); Memories (1975); The Doc Watson Family (ree. 1962-63; rei. 1977); Reflections (with Chet Atkins, 1980); Red Rockin’ Chair (1982); Pickin the Blues (1983); Guitar Album (1983); Down South (1984); Riding the Midnight Train (1986); Portrait (1987); On Praying Ground (1990); Sings Songs for Little Pickers (1990); Doc Watson & Family (ree. 1963-65; rei. 1991); Remembering Merle (1992); My Dear Old Southern Home (1992); Live Duet Recordings (with Bill Monroe, ree. 1963-80; rei. 1993); Vanguard Years (ree. 1963-68; rei. 1995); Docabilly (1995).

—William Ruhlmann