It’s not easy to categorize the music of Doc Watson. Born on March 3, 1923, in Deep Gap, North Carolina, Watson is revered for his performances of the traditional roots music that permeates the Appalachian region where he spent his life. But in addition to that music, Watson was just as adept at pop songs, show tunes, rock music — anything that caught his ear. “I like to talk about Doc Watson as kind of a multifaceted musician who specialized in music that he himself called ‘traditional plus’,” says Ted Olson, “which meant that it was traditional music in which he grew up — all that Appalachian music, that tradition he grew up within — but then beyond that … everything else he liked, he would play.”

Olson would know; he’s a professor of Appalachian Studies and Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Studies at East Tennessee State University, and the author of “Doc’s World: Traditional Plus,” the book that accompanies the box set released in 2022 by Craft Records called Doc Watson, Life’s Work: A Retrospective. For his work on that box set, Olson received a Grammy nomination in the category of Best Album Notes and another as a co-producer for Best Historical Album.

The year 2023 marks the centenary of Watson’s birth (he died in May 2012 at age 89). When the box set was nearing its release, Olson hosted a release event at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, N.C.; naturally, Olson wanted music to be part of the event, so he reached out to Virginia musician Jack Hinshelwood along with longtime Watson friends and collaborators Jack Lawrence and Wayne Henderson. That event inspired Olson and Hinshelwood to take it one step further. “We thought it was just a great opportunity to put a concert series togehter that would celebrate Doc and his music,” Hinshelwood says.

That series, Doc at 100, is now underway. With growing schedule of shows, the Doc at 100 concerts feature Doc Watson’s music performed by Hinshelwood, Lawrence and Henderson along with Watson’s veteran bassist T. Michael Coleman. Olson is the host and emcee of the concerts, providing stories and context for the music — and vitally, inviting the audience to share their own memories, which Olson collects, curates and weaves into the onstage program. “Time and again, the memories of Doc are all very warm and positive,” Olson says. “He loved to meet people, loved to talk to them, loved to listen to them. … He had a spirit that people connected to.”

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Not that the Doc at 100 series is limited to the Appalachian region. “We would be delighted to take the show just about anywhere that opportunity’s available, thanks to just how widespread Doc's popularity is and the places he played,” Hinshelwood says. “On the West Coast and up in the Northeast and so forth, so we're looking at some of that as well. And we’d be happy to come do it and Minnesota for that matter.”

Radio Heartland recently connected with Olson and Hinshelwood to talk about the Doc at 100 concert series, and also about Watson as a musician and as a person. You can listen to the interview using the audio players below, and read additional highlights further below.

Interview highlights

Doc Watson as a musician

Olson: Doc Watson's roots, of course, were in traditional Appalachian music, but he loved all kinds of music. He had open ears; he listened to everything, be it 78 RPM records from the past, or radio broadcasts, or the musicians around him. As he started to tour, he took on music from everybody he met; he became a proficient performer of the blues, for example, but also of pop music and rock music. I like to talk about Doc Watson as kind of a multifaceted musician who specialized in music that he himself called "traditional plus," which meant that it was traditional music in which he grew up — all that Appalachian music, that tradition he grew up within — but then beyond that, plus everything else, everything else he liked, he would play. And he was fearless in taking things on and trying to make them part of his repertoire. He played songs by groups as diverse as the Allman Brothers and the Moody Blues and many Mississippi blues players, and he just had open ears and he loved everything he heard.

Most of all, he loved to entertain people. So he was driven by a desire to entertain people and to make them happy. And then beyond that, his other motivation was to support his family through his music. ... So he really was in service to other people and other people's enjoyment of well-performed music. But he certainly was diverse in his in his skill set — and of course, most famously, a tremendous guitar player [and he had a] great voice; so many other facets to his musical character.

Hinshelwood: I think of him as being one of the greatest Americana guitarists before the term Americana became so widely used. … And then I'll also tell people about his abilities not only as a guitarist, but he was master of the banjo and a master of harmonica, which I would say are his two other instruments that he really excelled at. He was multifaceted … he was very much a product of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where he grew up, he was very much a product of that environment and carried that music as an incredible ambassador throughout his entire life. But as Ted said, he played traditional plus. And I think the plus side of his repertoire really surprised people who associated him as a mountain musician with a traditional mountain music repertoire. When he would pull out songs like Nights in White Satin, or these wonderful show tunes like “Bye Bye Blues” and so forth, [audiences] were taken aback, they had no idea the extent of this person's incredible repertoire.

Doc Watson as a person

Hinshelwood: For those folks who maybe don't know him, Doc was blind, and incredibly accomplished not only in music, but many things that surprise sighted people. He was so capable at doing many things, whether it was getting up on the roof of his house and fixing the windows or the antenna, to making things. He was just remarkable.

I recently heard a story of a friend who lived next door to Doc hearing a lot of noise in the middle of the night — about 2 or 3 a.m. — and it was coming from over at Doc's house. The neighbor went over to the garage where the noise was coming from; all the lights in the building were off, but there was this racket of saws and hammers. So the neighbor went in and of course, Doc just had gotten up in the wee hours and was working on a project. And in the pitch dark of night, Doc, being blind, of course didn't need to turn on any lights.

Olson: One thing that has come out from the testimonials we've heard of people remembering Doc is how generous Doc was with his time and with his talent, always quick to show somebody how to play a particular lick on the guitar or joining them on a song or encourage them in some way.

Everyone I talk to who knows Doc Watson talks about his generosity, and I would add his humility. One of his favorite phrases was that he was "just one of the people." And he kind of lived that out in his life. On Saturdays, apparently, one of his favorite things to do in his home community was to head on down to the music store in the nearby town of Boone, North Carolina, and teach kids how to play the guitar. And this was a man who'd probably come in on the road from Nashville playing with Chet Atkins or something like that! And yet he wanted — he insisted — upon sharing the love for the music, love for the instrument, and music making in general, with others.

Doc was truly humble. I mean, all the accolades, all the attention, all the — let's call it for what it was: fame — meant virtually nothing to him. He had other priorities. He played music because he loved it, but he had no need for fame or this sort of thing, because it did nothing for him but create a barrier to meeting people and having them embrace what he could give them.

Doc Watson’s essential recordings

Hinshelwood: What I might do is give you a list that you can easily reel off the top of your head, which is probably “Black Mountain Rag,” “Tennessee Stud” — which I believe would be the song most requested when he went around to play — and “Deep River Blues” might be the third on that well-known list.

But if I was to do a second list of not so well known, there's some masterpieces in his repertoire … “Sitting On Top of the World,” which he was playing back in the early 60s; he'd heard the Mississippi Sheiks' recording of it and made it his own entirely and I think it's truly one of his great masterpieces now. He was a great student of the music and ballads like “Geordie,” or “Georgie,” I think as Doc called it.

Doc was a great blues musician as well, and there are some incredible blues pieces he's done like “St. James Infirmary” or “Walk On Boy” that stand out in that particular genre. And then his picking on the guitar instrumentals, whether it's showtunes like sweet “Georgia Brown” or “Bye Bye Blues.”

And of course, he was famous for playing fiddle tunes on the guitar. And just for pure hot picking, if you listen to Doc playing things like “Beaumont Rag” or “Dill Pickle Rag,” those are both examples of Doc playing very fast instrumental pieces on the guitar, but he's not using a six string guitar. He's playing a 12-string guitar, which is very difficult, very challenging to play that kind of instrumental lead work on. The 12-string guitar is really more suited for chording and strumming and having a big, almost orchestral sound to it. And I had never heard anyone since — and I suspect it's because of just how challenging it is — I have never heard anyone playing that kind of music, fast instrumental fiddle tunes and so forth, on a 12-string guitar since Doc did it. Those are some great examples, I think, of his true genius.

Olson: I was put in the position of selecting a definitive Doc Watson playlist for the four CD album that I, you know, co-produced Life's Work: a Retrospective, and there are 101 recordings on that set. I went through the process of what by Doc needs to be heard and which version of what fiddle tune or what song needs to be included, so if anyone has any interest in kind of seeing what one person thought of his Doc's definitive list, it's all on there!

Doc Watson and Bob Dylan

Olson: Doc Watson met Bob Dylan at Newport Folk Festival, and there's a video of Dylan performing a song, “North Country Blues,” I think, from 1963 or so, and Doc is in the background, sitting listening, taking in every word, and he was obviously enjoying and appreciating the talent that Dylan was projecting there. So as it turns out, Dylan returned the favor and covered a Doc Watson song on a later album; they were mutual fans. There's a story that says that Dylan and Joan Baez visited Doc in North Carolina. I don't know if that's real or apocryphal, but it sounds like it was real.

Interactions and influences with other artists

Olson: Doc came into contact with all manner of musicians, you know, Libba Cotten and Horton Barker and Skip James, and — very influentially to Doc and Merle Watson — Mississippi John Hurt, who had that beautiful fingerstyle guitar playing, which influenced Merle as much as it influenced Doc. They both befriended Mississippi John Hurt, and Doc continued to talk about John Hurt throughout the rest of his life as being a major influence upon him.

Olson: Doc met many musicians that were either his contemporaries or younger. Doc befriended Bill Monroe, which is a very important meeting because they they recorded together some; basically, concert recordings that were later released on CD that are quite striking.

And of course, Doc made an album with Flatt and Scruggs and became a very good friend of Earl Scruggs, and Earl returned the favor later and invited Doc to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” sessions. The story about that is that Doc was invited to participate in this all-star cast country music celebration led by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but (Doc’s son and sideman) Merle Watson was not invited. And Doc’s feelings were hurt that Merle couldn't be included because they were such a team by that time, early 1970s, that Doc didn’t really want to do it. And Merle was very wise beyond his years and said, "Dad, you know, this would be good for you, good for us, and I'm not going to miss it if I'm not there, but you need to be there," and he talked his father into participating, and the rest is history. That album did more to kind of advance Doc's career than probably anyone else on the album. You might say the Doc had the biggest song from the album, “Tennessee Stud.” And it was a camaraderie that led the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band later on to just extol what, what an influence Doc was on their career.

I can distinctly recall driving one time in western North Carolina down the Doc and Merle Watson Highway — that's the name of it, 421 in Watauga County, North Carolina — and I was just listening to a radio show, and lo and behold, I hear the name Doc Watson get mentioned. It was kind of fortuitous that it was right there, right below the mountain where Doc lived, and it was it was Seth Avett talking, and he was reminiscing about Doc. It was just coincidental, but it was magical. I'm well aware of the Avett Brothers' fondness for for Doc Watson. The Avett Brothers were pretty close to Doc in terms of where they lived and crossing his path on a regular basis, partly at Merle Fest, the big music festival in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, which is named after Doc’s son, Merle Watson, who tragically died [in a farm accident] in the mid ‘80s.

Billy Strings is another example of a great younger player who's profoundly moved by Doc Watson's music and inspiration. Doc made a lot of friends.

Other ways to remember Doc Watson

Hinshelwood: One way that I plan to celebrate Doc’s actual birthday on March 3, not just this year, but every year [is with] some food — what Doc liked to eat. And it turns out that Doc was a big fan of lasagna, and always for dessert, he loved key lime pie. So my plan is every March 3 is to serve up a good slice of key lime pie.

Olson: I suppose the way to remember Doc and become more tuned into Doc would be simply to listen to his recordings … You're not going to hear a bad Doc recording; they're all going to capture his spirit and his sense of musicality and his joy for life, and also the serious side.

When I interviewed Tony Rice in 2018 for the liner notes for the box set, Tony said exactly that; basically Tony Rice said, "Any time you play Doc Watson's music, he's there in the room with you." So, to my mind, play his music and appreciate that he was on this earth, entertaining us all and bringing us all such joyous music.

It could be serious music, but it makes you happy in a sense; I mean, he's one of those artists that makes you feel good about life. Not many musicians can really affect a real positive sense of possibility and a joy of the experience of making music and listening to music. Not many can generate all that. But Doc could — and did — regularly. And it was his great gift to bring music to people, and to do it extremely well at the highest imaginable level, and be so accessible at the same time.

External Links

Doc at 100 - official site

Doc’s Guitar - fan site

Jack Hinshelwood - Bandcamp

ETSU’s Ted Olson releasing albums celebrating Black history - Ted Olson’s most recent project (East Tennessee State University website)