Great Voices of Bluegrass V: Doc Watson, 1923-2012:"The Train That Carried My Girl From Town"

Doc Watson, 1923-2012, was one of the greatest of country and Bluegrass musicians. Considering the fact that he is commonly considered to be a virtuoso guitarist, some may find it strange that I include him in this mini-series of great Bluegrass singers. The reason is very simple: Doc Watson was so greatly accomplished as an instrumentalist that in the shower of accolades that commonly fall upon him, the fact that he had a great singing voice and did a LOT of singing tends to get lost! Doc Watson was blind almost all his life, having lost his sight in his first year. As so often happens, music became a major outlet for him, as it did for Ray Charles and other blind musicians. He was never pampered by his parents because of his blindness. He had to work chopping wood to earn the 10 dollars necessary to buy his first guitar from Sears and Roebuck. His progress was fast and he soon became known by more and more people for his flat-picking skills. He was steeped in the country music tradition, absorbing large numbers of traditional tunes owing to the heightened sensitivity of his hearing. Over the course of his long life, he won 7 Grammy awards,and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, The International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor, and received the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997. Here, the great musician sings and picks "The Train That Carried My Girl From Town."