American Folk Legend Doc Watson Dies

by Mary Morningstar

American folk and roots music performer Doc Watson died on May 29 of complications from abdominal surgery.

For more than five decades, Watson entertained audiences around the world with an eclectic repertoire that included elements of folk, blues, Country, bluegrass, rockabilly, and even jazz.  A master of the contemporary flat-pick guitar style, the eight-time Grammy Award winner influenced generations of musicians in rock, country and folk. 

Born Arthel Lane Watson in Deep Gap, North Carolina, his first love was the traditional music of the Blue Ridge Mountain region.  In his early childhood, he contracted an illness which caused permanent blindness, a handicap that directed his interests toward music.  Watson was also inspired by his father, a multi-instrumentalist, who bought his first harmonica and taught him to play the banjo.  He got his first lessons on the guitar while attending the School For The Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Watson loved to tell the story of how that experience earned him his own guitar.

"My father was sitting at the breakfast table drinking his last cup of coffee before he went to work and I was fooling with a borrowed guitar that one of my brothers had there," Watson recalled. "And he said, 'Son, if you learn a song on that by the time I get back this evening from work, we'll buy you one on Saturday.'  Well, what he didn't know was a friend of mine at the school I was going to over in Raleigh had taught me a few chords and I could pick and sing that thing when he got back.  And he said, 'I guess I'll have to keep my word.'"

At age 17, Doc Watson made his performing debut at a fiddler's convention in Boone, North Carolina.  That led to appearances at other local functions and on various radio programs.  Doc's concerts were often called "short courses in the history of American music."  His popularity grew in the early 1960's, and in 1964, reached a national level following a performance at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.  That same year, he was signed to Vanguard Records.  He once said his ultimate goal was to be a recording artist.

"I always wanted to be professional enough to do some records," he explained. " I never thought about having any sort of countrywide or worldwide recognition in the music world. My dad put me to work when I was 13 instead of letting me sit in the corner on the other end of the saw and that started me.  And my sweet little wife Rosalee took my hand and helped me with enough courage to get out and make a living."

In 1965, Doc Watson added his 15-year-old son Merle to his act.  For the next two decades, Merle's slide and acoustic guitar accompaniment were featured on several albums and at nearly all of his live shows.  At age 36, Merle died in a farming accident, a tragedy that led to Doc's semi-retirement in the late-1980's.  In 1988, Watson honored his son’s memory by founding the annual roots music festival MerleFest.

Although he chose to spend less time on the road, Doc continued to record in the 1990's.  The bond he felt with his audience transcended into the recording studio.

"You think about 'Well, if I do this well, a lot of people of going to buy this record and they're going to listen to it.'  You've got an audience there though you don't see them and you can't reach out and shake hands with them.  They're there in the future as you will.  You know if you do the record well, once people begin to hear it, they'll buy it and that's your audience," he said.

In 1995, Doc returned to his musical roots with the album, Docabilly.  Some of the artists he influenced, including Marty Stuart, Duane Eddy and guit-steel player Junior Brown, were featured on the critically-acclaimed collection of 1950's rockabilly tunes.  Two of Doc’s albums crossed over to the Billboard 200 chart, including his 2003 Grammy-nominated release, The Three Pickers.  The album also featured Earl Scruggs and Ricky Skaggs.

Doc Watson was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1997.  In 2004, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Photo by boonejag75: Doc Watson at Sugar Grove Music Festival in 2009.

Remembering Earl Scruggs

by Katherine Cole

Earl Scruggs, whose distinctive style of bluegrass banjo picking influenced countless players and helped to shape the sound of modern country music, died in a Nashville hospital Wednesday, March 28.  He was 88 years old.

Before Earl Scruggs, most banjo players used a two- fingered picking style. But all that changed after the 21-year-old North Carolina native joined Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys in 1945, and brought his three- fingered rolls to Nashville.

“I used to play with just the finger and thumb, which they call two-fingered style.  Then I started playing a tune when I was about 10 or 11 and this third finger started working, which filled in some spaces. And that excited me because I could play some other tunes that I couldn’t play with the two finger style. So I just kept working with what I had.”

Before Earl Scruggs, the banjo was often considered a novelty item in a band. It was usually played by a comic character, not a serious musician.  As fellow banjo player Bela Fleck explains, Earl Scruggs changed all that.

“I think it was a combination of an incredible rhythmic approach with a very simple and beautiful harmonic language," he said. "He plays the banjo and it grabs you just like the lead vocal would. An amazing technique.  They called him ‘the Paganini of the banjo’ in the New York Times when he played at Carnegie Hall.  And I think he was just a beautiful, beautiful player. I think the lessons that you learn from someone like that transcend bluegrass and are just about music.”

In 1948, Earl Scruggs and guitarist Lester Flatt shocked the country music community by quitting Bill Monroe’s band and setting out on their own. In retrospect, it was a brilliant move, as Flatt and Scruggs and The Foggy Mountain Boys soon became just as famous as their ex-boss. Their first hit, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” arguably became the most famous banjo instrumental in the world. The song was a favorite of a then- teenaged bluegrass fan named Warren Beatty, who later used it as the theme to his movie “Bonnie and Clyde.” 

By the time Warren Beatty used their music in “Bonnie and Clyde,” Flatt and Scruggs had outgrown the smallish world of bluegrass and had entered the mainstream. They played everywhere:  New York’s famed Carnegie Hall, college campuses, and even headlined the famous Newport Folk Festival in 1962. The next year, Earl Scruggs’ banjo was heard on the number one country song in the U.S., “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” known to fans around the world as the theme to the “Beverly Hillbillies” television program. 

Throughout the 1960s Earl Scruggs’ sound continued to evolve. He discovered new songs through his sons Randy and Gary, along with musicians like Bob Dylan and Ravi Shankar, who came to Nashville and wanted to meet and pick tunes with the legendary banjo master. In turn, Earl wanted to incorporate songs by Bob Dylan and other folk rockers into the Flatt and Scruggs sound, a move that didn’t please Lester Flatt. Nor did he agree with Scruggs’ liberal politics. These differences led to the breakup of Flatt & Scruggs in 1969.

The end of that legendary pairing was not, however, the end of Earl Scruggs. He teamed with his sons Steve, Gary and Randy to form the Earl Scruggs Revue, a mainly acoustic rock band that went on to record several albums and influence many groups. Among them was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who credited Earl and his sons for inspiring the groundbreaking project “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.”

Earl Scruggs continued to record and perform with the Revue through the 1970s and 1980s.  Son Steve’s death in 1992 deeply affected him. The loss, along with a serious heart attack four years later, forced him into an early retirement.

The new century, however, brought more music: Fans the world over were thrilled when he released “Earl Scruggs And Friends.” The Grammy-winning album featured collaborations with his sons along with Sting, Dwight Yoakam and others.

A member of just about every musical Hall of Fame and a recipient of numerous honors, Earl Scruggs continued to tour until soon before his death. He played in theatres, clubs and major festivals such as Bonnaroo, Stagecoach and last October’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

Few musicians have changed the way an instrument is played and heard the way Earl Scruggs has. Today, most everyone who picks a banjo does it “Scruggs style.”  As the country singer Porter Wagoner said at Scruggs’ 80th birthday party, “Earl was to the five-string banjo what Babe Ruth was to baseball.”

Bluegrass Legend Earl Scruggs Dead at 88

American bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs, whose unique banjo-playing style helped shape modern country music, has died.

The 88-year-old Scruggs died Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee — known as the country music capital of the world. His son, Gary, said he died of natural causes.

Friends and fans paid tribute to Scruggs Thursday and flowers were to be placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

A four-time Grammy Award winner, Scruggs originated the three-finger style of picking the five-string banjo, an American instrument. His “Scruggs style” helped popularize the instrument beyond bluegrass and country music.

The host of Voice of America's music program Roots and Branches, Katherine Cole, says it is “impossible to overstate how important Earl Scruggs was to American music.” She says that few musicians have changed the way an instrument is played and heard the way Scruggs did.

In 1945, he joined bandleader Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys — which established the genre — and wowed listeners on the Grand Ole Opry radio program broadcast from Nashville.

The marketing director for the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Kentucky, Danny Clark, says Earl Scruggs transformed bluegrass.

“Bluegrass music, it was completely different before Earl Scruggs came on board. I mean, if you look back in the history books, in December of 1945, when Bill Monroe hired Earl Scruggs to play in his band, the Blue Grass Boys, that addition of Earl Scruggs to what is now referred to as the 'classic' band, it just completely revolutionized bluegrass music, the way it's heard. That sound, that three-finger style that he helped pioneer and broadcast to the masses had never been heard before, and that addition to Bill Monroe's band just completely changed that form of American music.”

Later, Scruggs partnered with Blue Grass Boys guitarist and lead vocalist Lester Flatt to form their own band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. Flatt and Scruggs rose to fame with the theme song for the 1960s television series The Beverly Hillbillies, known as “The Ballad of Jed Clampett.” The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde also featured their work, with their song “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” used in the movie's chase scenes.

Photo: 2005 picture of USA banjo player Earl Scruggs by Rivers Langley.

Final Exits, 8-14 September 2011

Old-time and Bluegrass musician Wade Mainer (Appalachian banjo picker/singer) in his later years. (Photo: National Endowment for the Arts)

Obituaries for 8-14 September 2011

8
* David Bitner, 62, American political leader, Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida (2011), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
* Mary Fickett, 83, American actress (All My Children), complications of Alzheimer's disease.
* Silvia Glogner, 70, Austrian-born German actress. (German)
* Jesse Jefferson, 62, American baseball player (Baltimore Orioles, Toronto Blue Jays), prostate cancer.
* Marcos Plonka, 71, Brazilian comedian and actor. (Portuguese)
* Sir Hilary Synnott, 66, British diplomat.
* Võ Chí Công, 99, Vietnamese politician, President (1987–1992).
* Emilianos Zacharopoulos, 96, Turkish-born Greek Orthodox hierarch, Metropolitan (since 1959). (French)

9
* Werner Geeser, 63, Swiss Olympic cross-country skier, cancer. (German)
* Laurie Hughes, 87, English football player (Liverpool).
* William Lesick, 88, Canadian politician, MP for Edmonton East (1984–1988).
* Herbert Lomas, 87, British poet.
* Ignace Matondo Kwa Nzambi, 79, Congolese Roman Catholic prelate, Bishop of Basankusu (1974–1998) and Molegbe (1998–2007).
* Khairy Shalaby, 73, Egyptian writer.

10
* David E. L. Choong, 82, Malaysian badminton player.
* Graham Collier, 74, British jazz bassist.
* Cecil Marshall, 71, Canadian cricketer.
* Sabino Augusto Montanaro, 89, Paraguayan politician, Minister of the Interior (1968–1989). (Spanish)
* Eric Prabhakar, 86, Indian Olympic athlete (1948).
* Cliff Robertson, 88, American actor (Charly, Spider-Man, PT 109), natural causes.

11
* Douglas Allen, Baron Croham, 93, British civil servant, Head of the Home Civil Service (1974–1977).
* Christian Bakkerud, 26, Danish racing driver, injuries sustained in a car accident.
* Cliff Brittle, 69, English sports administrator, Chairman of the Rugby Football Union (1996–1998).
* Arthur Evans, 68, American gay rights activist and author, aortic aneurysm.
* Ralph Gubbins, 79, English football player (Bolton Wanderers, Hull City, Tranmere Rovers).
* Yuri Kuzmenkov, 70, Russian actor (Big School-Break), heart attack. (Russian)
* Isabell Masters, 98, American politician, third-party candidate for President of the United States (1984, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004).
* Yuli Ofer, 87, Romanian-born Israeli businessman and entrepreneur.
* Tanekichi Onishi, 111, Japanese supercentenarian.
* Walter Righter, 87, American clergyman, bishop in the Episcopal Church, after long illness.
* Andy Whitfield, 39, Welsh-born Australian actor (Spartacus: Blood and Sand), non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

12
* Bill Cash, 92, American Negro league baseball player.
* Frits Castricum, 64, Dutch politician, Member of the House of Representatives (1977–1994) and the Senate (1999–2003). (Dutch)
* Alexander Galimov, 26, Russian ice hockey player, injuries sustained in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash.
* Wade Mainer, 104, American bluegrass musician, heart failure.
* Don Wayne, 78, American songwriter ("Country Bumpkin", "Saginaw, Michigan").

13
* Walter Bonatti, 81, Italian mountain climber. (German)
* John Calley, 81, American movie studio executive.
* Wilma Lee Cooper, 90, American country music singer, natural causes.
* Sam DeLuca, 75, American football player and broadcaster (New York Jets), pancreatic cancer.
* Paul Gallant, 67, Canadian entrepreneur, inventor of Puzz-3D, cancer.
* Jack E. Garner, 84, American actor (The Rockford Files, My Fellow Americans), brother of James Garner.
* Richard Hamilton, 89, British artist.
* David Jull, 66, Australian politician, Member of the House of Representatives (1975–1983, 1984–2007).
* DJ Mehdi, 34, French musician.
* Harlan Erwin Mitchell, 87, American politician, U.S. Representative from Georgia (1958–1961).
* Carl Oglesby, 76, American activist, lung cancer.
* Gautam Rajadhyaksha, 62, Indian photographer.

14
* Harishchandra Birajdar, 61, Indian Olympic wrestler (1972).
* Choi Dong-Won, 53, South Korean baseball player (Lotte Giants, Samsung Lions), colon cancer.
* Julia Constenla, 83, Argentine journalist and writer. (Spanish)
* Desmond FitzGerald, 29th Knight of Glin, 74, Irish nobleman.
* David Francey, 87, Scottish broadcaster.
* Jorge Lavat, 78, Mexican actor. (Spanish)
* Buddy Tinsley, 87, Canadian football player (Winnipeg Blue Bombers).
* Malcolm Wallop, 78, American politician, United States Senator from Wyoming (1977–1995).

Remembering Hazel Dickens

Remembering Hazel Dickens
Katherine Cole, VOA
Washington
27 April 2011

Trailblazing bluegrass and folk singer-songwriter Hazel Dickens recently died at the age of 76.  Dickens was a performer whose childhood in a West Virginia coal mining town led her to become a labor activist and inspired a life-long musical career.

“It’s Hard to Tell The Singer From The Song” is the title track to Hazel Dickens' 1987 solo CD. Many of Hazel’s songs, like “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” are anthems to working men and women, with the plight of non-unionized workers being a subject close to her heart, as was the coal mining country that she grew up in.

One of Hazel Dickens' most famous is “Black Lung,” written for a brother who died of the disease. Black lung is the common name for any lung disease developing from breathing coal dust.

Hazel Dickens grew up the eighth of 11 children in a poor mining family in West Virginia. Poverty forced her to leave the family home and move to Baltimore, Maryland, where she worked in factories alongside her sister and two brothers.

In a VOA interview several years ago, Hazel said the four attended music gatherings in their rare free time. At one, she met Mike Seeger, the younger brother of folk legend Pete Seeger, and they soon formed a band with her two brothers.

Over the next few years, Hazel became a regular part of the Baltimore and Washington music scene, playing and singing in several bands.

In the early 1960s, she teamed up with Alice Gerrard, and the two spent hours at the United States Library of Congress, researching early folk songs. They recorded only two albums together, but countless female musicians cite Hazel and Alice as influences and continue to perform their songs like “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me.”

Hazel Dickens’ solo career began with the soundtrack to an Academy Award-winning documentary film about a violent miner’s strike. “Harlan County USA” is a very powerful film about a 13-month strike, and it highlights the central role women played. Hazel has four songs on the soundtrack, including “They’ll Never Keep Us Down.”

Songs like that one are a reason that Hazel Dickens was called the “voice of the working class.” While many come from her own life, Hazel’s songs are ones that many people, not just those working down deep in coal mines or in factories can identify with.

Hazel Dickens lived in Washington for many years and, despite bouts of ill health, performed at the South by Southwest music conference just a month before her death.  She received many honors and accolades over her long career, including membership in the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award from the Folk Alliance International,and on April 16 of this year Hazel was given the Washington Monument award by the D.C. Bluegrass Union.