In 1962, Doc Watson and some of his musician neighbors set out from
their home in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the journey of a lifetime, to
perform at the Ash Grove folk club in Los Angeles.
"I remember the
first trip we did," Watson said in a 2008 interview. "We borrowed a
little station wagon from the late Clarence Ashley's son and drove to
California and back, and I remember thinking, 'Lord, what a big old
country this is.' I was a mountaineer, just a country boy. I'd never
been nowhere like that before."
Within a few years, Watson
seemingly had been everywhere, as his prowess on guitar and his vast
store of traditional Southern music made the blind musician an
internationally celebrated artist.
Watson, 89, who recorded more than 50 albums and won seven Grammy Awards,
died Tuesday at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem,
N.C., according to his representatives at Folklore Productions, a Santa
Monica management company. He had undergone colon surgery Thursday.
