Appalachian flat-picked guitar
Doc Watson is a legendary guitar player who blends his traditional Appalachian musical roots with bluegrass, country, gospel, and blues to create a unique style and expansive repertoire. He is a powerful singer and a tremendously influential flat-picker who virtually invented the art of playing mountain fiddle tunes on the flattop guitar. His many honors include the National Medal of Arts, a National Heritage Fellowship, and five Grammy Awards. [ Doc,] Born Arthel L. Watson in 1923, Doc hails from the Blue Ridge Mountain region of Deep Gap, North Carolina, where he still lives. Blind since infancy, he grew up surrounded by a musical family in a region celebrated for its rich musical traditions. He learned the harmonica at age 5 and the banjo at age 11; he moved on to the guitar when he was 13, having fallen in love with the sound of it listening to the 78rpm recordings of his childhood. His unique flat-picking technique actually stems from an unsuccessful attempt to learn the fiddle: "I thought, 'Well, since I can't seem to master the fiddle, I'll learn fiddle tunes on the guitar.'" Although he downplays his influence, many agree that Watson's music (which he terms "traditional plus") started a revolution in bluegrass guitar, and he transformed the role of the instrument in a realm where the guitar was strictly a rhythm instrument. Over the course of a career touched by rockabilly, swing, jazz, and the folk revival of the 60s, Doc Watson has earned wide respect as both a accomplished traditionalist and an inspirational musical innovator.
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Music Sampler: "Nashville Pickin'"