Folk Singer Doc Watson Dead at 89

May 30, 2012 Remembered

Folk singer Doc Watson died Tuesday in a North Carolina hospital just a week after undergoing abdominal surgery, his manager confirmed in a statement. Watson was 89.

Getty Images

Born in Deep Gap, North Carolina, Watson suffered an eye infection as a baby and was left blind by the age of 1. He learned to play banjo and guitar as a boy before hitting it big on the folk scene in the 1960s, when he was already in his 40s.

“He is single-handedly responsible for the extraordinary increase in acoustic flat-picking and fingerpicking guitar performance,” Smithsonian folklorist Ralph Rinzer, who discovered Watson in 1960, told Time. “His flat-picking style has no precedent in earlier country music history.”

Watson, who often performed with his son Merle, went on to record 50 albums and win eight Grammy Awards for albums like “Then and Now” and “Riding the Midnight Train.” He also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2004.

Filed Under: Top Stories, Trending Stories, Remembered

Prev Post Former Telepictures President Jim Paratore Dead at 58

Next Post Remembering Jim Paratore

Add Your Comment

Your comments*

Please check your inbox ... your comment will not appear until you have confirmed your identity via email.
Receive Extra Newsletter

Cancel Reply

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put 1 URL in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.