The May 31st edition of the NY Times had a short article by Ry Cooder about Doc Watson in which Cooder described the first time he heard Doc Watson. Watson, Clarence Ashley, Fred Price, and Clint Howard sang "Daniel Prayed" on the UCLA campus.
Cooder remembered thinking, "these men know something about music I'll never know, even if I practice and study all my life. You have to be born into that."
For myself, I remember one memorable moment of a Doc Watson concert. (I've forgotten the guitarists Doc referred to, but you'll see it doesn't matter.) Doc said, "I always like the way the Johnson brothers played. Earl Johnson played like this." Doc played a little. "And Ray, he played like this." Doc played a little more. "And together they sounded like this."
It sounded nice. Then jaws dropped when we realized that what sounded like two guitars was Doc on a single guitar. Most of us laughed and applauded. The poor folkies were probably wondering if they should head off to the bathrooms to cut their wrists right then and there or wait until after the concert because it was at that moment that they realized that they would never, ever, be that good.
He told a joke about a Quaker farmer who owned a cow which would swat him with it's tail and try to kick him or overturn the milk pail. Imitating the farmer patting the cow on the head, Doc said, "I will not beat thee, but in the morning I will sell thee to a Baptist."
I cherish the memory of that concert because I believe it was the first time I heard him sing "Otto Wood the Bandit". I was taken with the way he sang Otto stressing both syllables as"Ot-tow" instead of "Otoh". (I was unaware that that was the way the song was originally sung. See for example The Carolina Buddies recording at http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-9/9-6/otto-wood.html.)
If you want to get some measure of the man and why he was so revered listen to
Terry Gross's 1988 Fresh Air interview with Doc Watson. The interview proceeds as one might expect when interviewing an unassuming legend until Terry respectfully asked him about the death of his son Merle. With the honesty that marked the man, he recounted that he was so devastated that he didn't want to play anymore. If he hadn't been persuaded to keep playing he might have stopped. His wife had stopped singing, being unable to deal with Merle's death. A very moving interview.
There's a good biography of Doc Watson, "
Doc Watson: Blind But Now I See (Book Review) on eartymemusic.com which includes this quote from Daryl Anger:
“There was a feeling… that Doc was sort of like a spectacular natural feature
of the landscape; inevitable, fully formed, iconic. He seemed ageless,
and his so-called disability and spectacular transcendence of that along
with his folksy manner made him a kind of mythic character, sort of a
household god.”
I can only add that those who never had the opportunity to see him in person have missed something memorable.
