The Doc-tor Is In
What a sensation Doc Watson must have made when he hit the national folk circuit in the early Sixties. Here was a rural musician of unimpeachable authenticity making his mark at a time when authenticity was the highest badge of honor. The real thing he undoubtedly was, but Watson’s ace was his effortlessly virtuosic guitar picking. This was no primitive player whose down-home bona fides were expected to align with limited technical skills. Watson was a masterful finger and flat-picker and a singer of unvarnished warmth with a vast knowledge of bluegrass, country, ragtime, folk, and blues tunes at his fingertips. He was a win-win: a man of the North Carolina mountains, one generation removed from the originators of the music he embodied, playing with a sophistication that was the envy of the well-meaning three-chord strummers watching him with slack-jawed amazement. The fact that he was blind only added to their astonishment.
Watson’s early albums for Vanguard Records are bursting with examples of lightning guitar runs executed with impeccable finesse — clean-toned, precise and rhythmically effervescent. Yet I’m as drawn to his more relaxed performances, the kind that can have you picturing Doc sitting on a back-country porch entertaining his neighbors. No need to show off, we’re all friends here.
“Walk On Boy” evokes the same feeling. The opening track from Watson’s classic 1966 Southbound, it’s a cover of a Mel Tillis song, itself a variant on the legend of John Henry, the fictional African-American folk hero whose steel-driving prowess inspired a subgenre of American song. Watson’s rich-soil baritone keeps us hitched to the loose narrative, but his guitar runs, clear and clean as rushing river water, seemingly tossed off with ease, hold us with their nonchalant proficiency. Watson is accompanied by an acoustic bassist and possibly two other guitarists — his son, Merle, and/or John Pilla — but you know when you are hearing Doc’s blues lines; they cut through like John Henry chipping away solid rock.
While Watson had adroit instrumental assistance on “Walk On Boy” the clip below proves that he really didn’t need it. Sounding like a delegation of guitarists, Watson shows how easy it’s done. All that’s required is a six-string, a thumb pick, and unlimited genius.