Live At Club 47

Long acknowledged as Americas premiere folk guitarist, Arthel Lane Doc Watson was born in what was then the tiny rural community of Deep Gap, North Carolina in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains on March 3, 1923. Surrounded by music and musicians, Doc and his siblings grew up listening to hymns, murder ballads and down home string band music, all of which would later find places in his own repertoire.

Unlike his contemporaries Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, who started their professional careers playing acoustic guitars and later switched to electric, Doc began on electric and later made the transition to acoustic with the advent of the folk revival of the Sixties. Although he continued to work with Williams playing country and pop music, Doc never stopped playing traditional mountain music with his family and friends at home. These included Clarence Tom Ashley, Docs father-in-law Gaither Carlton, and two other neighbors, fiddler Fred Price and guitarist Clint Howard, all of whom would travel and record with Doc in the future. It was in these comfortable home surroundings that Doc was first discovered and recorded by folklorist Ralph Rinzler and collector and discographer Eugene Earle, who were on a collecting trip through North Carolina looking for traditional artists to record. Once these field recordings were released, as Old Time Music at Clarence Ashleys Vol. 1 (and later Vol. 2) on Folkways Records, Docs reputation grew, and he soon began playing for enthusiastic urban audiences farther from home. Rinzler presented Doc in concert in New York.