Champion Country Picker

While Bayreuth boasted a Wagnerian summit, Statesville, N.C., happily mustered the top names in folk and country music. To that city, nestled among the Appalachian foothills, there came last weekend such established bluegrass gurus as Earl Scruggs and Red Allen.

Joining them was the man currently winning most of the kudos in the field, Folk Singer-Guitarist Arthel ("Doc") Watson.

Husky, easygoing, and seemingly unperturbed by the fact that he has been blind ever since early childhood, Watson, 44, is a regular country-music Segovia. His casual, clean-cut virtuosity on the "flattop" (nonelectric) guitar is little less than awesome as he drives through such standards as Black Mountain Rag and Nashville Blues. His voice curls reedily and winsomely around Matty Groves, reminding some of the young Burl Ives. The only difference: Watson sings on pitch.

Highbrow Respectability. Folklorists are quick to point out that Watson's stylings are far from pure. He readily admits that his songs and techniques were as much copied from early listening to radio and records as they were derived from the folk around his Deep Gap, N.C., birthplace. He got his first instrument at the age of eleven, a fret-less banjo made for him by his father, a "pretty fair country picker." By 17, he had begun serious listening to such country-music greats as Guitarist Merle Travis, and had duplicated Travis' individualistic finger-picking style, in which the forefinger touches the strings directly and plucks out the tune while the thumb plunks out a moving bass. Country music in those days offered slim pickings to a newcomer, and Watson earned his first pay as lead guitarist in a local pop band. But in 1960, he was suddenly picked out of the band by Talent Scout Ralph Rinzler, packed off in a station wagon loaded with musicians and instruments, and trundled around the country. In 1962 he was rushed in as replacement at Los Angeles' prestigious folk singers' mecca, Ash Grove, and has been moving up ever since.

Today, four Vanguard records and over 300 tour dates later, Watson is located dead-center in the forward thrust of country music toward highbrow as well as lowbrow respectability. The very impurity of his style, coupled with the exhilaration his work generates, goes a long way to accomplish this aim. Like a select few before him (John Jacob Miles, Travis, Clarence Ashley), he forms a bridge between America's primitive folk heritage and the sophisticated listener.

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