On May 29, 2012, traditional American music lost an icon as Arthel \u201cDoc\u201d Watson passed away at the age of 89.\u00a0 Watson has long been considered a giant in the acoustic music world, and his virtuosic guitar playing, made all the more amazing by the fact that he was blind, has been attempted and studied by numerous envious guitar players.\u00a0 For the uninitiated, and for longtime fans The Best of Doc Watson: 1964-1968<\/i> provides a good cross-section of Watson\u2019s style.<\/p>\n
During the period of these recordings, Watson was gaining popularity as the folk scene also rose in popularity.\u00a0 Watson\u2019s approach leaned heavily on the mountain music of his youth, including his heroes Jimmie Rodgers, the Delmore Brothers and the Carter Family.\u00a0 The Best<\/i> contains some songs that casual country listeners will recognize from more modern versions, such as \u201cDown in the Valley to Pray” and “Shady Grove.”\u00a0 Oldies lovers will recognize “Rising Sun Blues” which was popularized by the Animals in 1964, but had existed for decades prior to that in the form Doc sang it, and perhaps in other forms for centuries.\u00a0 This disc also holds some humorous and enjoyable side tracks like “Muskrat,” “Intoxicated Rat,” and “Crawdad Hole.” Other songs are not as good, and the sheer volume of material contained on the disc (23 tracks in all) can be daunting, though not unusual for a compilation album.<\/p>\n
The meat of this album comes in some tracks where Doc\u2019s guitar and smooth baritone voice combine for an intoxicating cocktail.\u00a0 Often Doc\u2019s single guitar can sound like two because of his thumb\/index finger picking style.\u00a0 This is only enhanced by tracks where he is assisted on guitar by his equally talented son Merle.\u00a0 “Tennessee Stud,” “Otto Wood the Bandit,” “Blue Railroad Train,” and “Grandfather’s Clock\u201d are superb.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But if you want two tracks that are essential Doc Watson tunes and ones that will make you a fan for life, “The Train That Carried My Girl from Town” and “Black Mountain Rag” are the tracks to hear.\u00a0 \u201cTrain\u201d is a barnburner with fun lyrics and some great Watson guitar picking, while “Black Mountain Rag” is a classic fiddle tune that Watson put to guitar.\u00a0 Listen to this track and realize that it is one blind man playing one guitar and picking with only two fingers.\u00a0 And it is a live track to boot.\u00a0 Acoustic music doesn\u2019t get any better than this.<\/p>\n
Watson\u2019s career ebbed and flowed for about 60 years.\u00a0 Even in his later years he still did a steady stream of shows with the help of his grandson Richard, multi-instrumentalist David Holt, or pianist Jeff Little.\u00a0 His presence will be missed but his music will survive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":30966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6943],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42646","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-doc-watson","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42646"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42646"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}