Consummate Entertainers

How’s this for some Throwback Thursday fun? Doc Watson and Chet Atkins, from a 1980 appearance on Johnny Carson.

You may not know who Johnny Carson was, but you’ll appreciate the fun Doc and Chet have at the expense of some famous folk late in this clip. The medley starts off with “Beaumont Rag”. There might be another tune in the middle, but they end it with “I’m On My Way To Canaan’s Land”.

What a pleasure to watch two virtuosi entertain a tough crowd while still keeping things moving.

BTW, the record they made together is still available. It’s called “Reflections”, and it includes these tunes.

What a treasure this is; it must have been very nearly the final performance for them both.

Makes you wonder why everybody wants to sound like everybody else these days. When you heard  Pete Seeger or Doc Watson – or both – you knew from the first couple of notes who was playing. Nobody else sounded like them, because nobody was like them.

Here they are with a song that’s fitting, I think: “You Got To Walk That Lonesome Valley”.

Exceeding Posted Speed

I’ve been very fortunate to find a couple of historic duets on YouTube.

Today, it’s Bill Monroe – this time, at an unnamed festival with Doc Watson.

Both of them made their reputations – at least in part – by playing old fiddle tunes on their respective instruments. Technically speaking, this was no mean feat.

Here they are, speeding again, with “Paddy On the Turnpike”.

Doc Watson wrote this tune, covered here by Ricky Skaggs and Marty Stuart – a consummate storyteller who offers a starry-eyed account of the first time he ever heard the “Watson Blues”.

Doc Watson recorded a Dr. Pepper jingle. That is all.

Spare yet inventive, primitive yet progressive: I love the approach that Abigail Washburn and Béla Fleck take to the old songs. This one’s an old, shape note hymn – you might be familiar with Doc Watson’s version – called “And Am I Born To Die?”