David Holt and Doc Watson: Soldier's Joy and Ragtime Annie

[MrTjbyrd]

Hey if youns like bluegrass check out Richard And Tristan Soldier's Joy

[FiddlinMikeRolland]

Doc Watson is so awesome. I love that he's playing with a clawhammer banjo player and playing with a more old timey feel. These guys really show that even the 'simple' tunes are awesome and are exciting to listen to if you play them right. I teach this tune for free on my channel. I post a new lesson for fiddle, guitar, and mandolin there every single week! You can also get the full lesson and the sheet music on my website.

[karendevaki]

Unbelievable!

[alanjameshale]

Wonderful Music. You Cannot Hear Better.

[GodsFavoriteBassPlyr]

Doc Watson is surely a national treasure! What a great session!

[fscofi]

I have never heard Doc play when he did not take the time to compliment someone who played or sang something that pleased him. He is as gracious as any human ever. We were in Salem and he held my hand as we told tales to one another. I was never so honored. One day I will tell everyone about the mandolin he played on Texas Gales and how he made his brother Arnold fix it. And the way he fixed it is the biggest hoot of all Doc Watson is everything you see and hear and much, much more.

[McGrenzer]

@fscofi Thanks for sharing that story, it confirms what I always felt about Doc.

[wvuhrn]

amazing.

[giggleblaggle]

I think that's the best clawhammer rendition of Soldier's Joy I've ever heard.

[IBG67]

i hate music in a formal setting....i bet that the doc would be tickled shitless if them Appy State boys (like myself) got up and started dancing and hooping and hollering, like your supposed to when you hear flatpicking legends.

[TheElMarsh]

the use of electric instrumentation is such a superficial difference. It's hardly a difference.. If you want difference, look at bluegrass versus newgrass, there is an actual ARTISTIC difference between the two styles

[Morris4beer]

hopeless. keep it irish not old western.

[TTexas2]

When you want to hear a beautiful fiddle tune played at its best on a guitar, you just can't beat the fabulous Master himself, Doc Watson. ✫✫✫✫✫

[RoyFive]

You're absolutely right, TTexas, it just can't be done!

[jeanpiaget007]

Doc is great, especially with bluegrass like this. . . and yeah, the inlay on the Deering is something else!

[nasty5oh]

gotta love doc

[GuitarMan027]

My grandfather played clawhammer and the fiddle too. These tunes take me back everytime...

[grundoon51]

Only Doc Watson can flatpick fiddle tunes and make it look easy--he's incredible

[PappyCaligula]

AND when Merle was playing with him, it didn't get any better. So fortunate I got to see Doc, Merle (RIP), Earl, The Dillards, and John (rest his soul!) play together in Greenville, SC circa one COOOOLD day in November, 1980.

[grundoon51]

God, what a line-up you lucky bastard!! I've seen Doc several times, with and without Merle, Earl (with and without sons), and the Dillards, but never in one place--

[PappyCaligula]

Yea, and I had pictures to prove it BUT they got destroyed in a fire. Bill Monroe came on later on and proved what a prick he could be. (Everyone else, including Doc and Merle loaded up and LEFT way before Monroe hit the stage..Some folks actually started to BOO Monroe at the end).

[grundoon51]

Only heard Monroe once and that was years ago--early '70's--in an old music hall in Atlanta--that high lonesome stuff never did much for me

[PappyCaligula]

He and his ilk of "non-electric" spawned alot of out of tune "bad musicianship". HE hi-jacked the sound of the mountains and tried to label it "Kentuckey". Some of his disciples still try to ban all progress in the genre, which is the reason you don't get to hear much on radio, even NPR-type stations. For example, there's a cult that believes putting a pickup in a mandolin is sacriledge to their "Great Father" (Monroe). Their ilk has given B'grass a bad name and almost killed the genre. (cont)

[PappyCaligula]

(Continued rant)..Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and I can go on of the old tymers have embraced progress. Doc included an electric bass as you know. A doghouse sounds great but isn't always practical. I once had a chance to get Tony Trishka's entire band on a Tuesday night for 250 BUX but the pickin' parlor I rented told Trishka' behind my back, "No ELECTRICS...We're PURE here" That arrogant a-hole is also named Bill. He is considered a pariah in the industry while he singfs out-of-tune on a Martin.

[grundoon51]

Easy there, Pappy, there've always been a few Luddites around, but most people still care about good music more than ritual purity-it's the same people who got upset when Dylan went electric--It was Earl that got the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band together with all those folks for Will the Circle be Unbroken

[PappyCaligula]

Thanks for the revival of the term Luddite!. Pete Seegar lost all credibility when he wanted to get an axe and chop Dylans cords. (I could care less about Seegar's politics). That kind of folk was like the Cambridge Uppity "Kumbaya" version, not the real stuff of Guthrie, Watson, Wisemen, etc.

AND yes, Earl IS a musician AND a businessman (and a good mechanic I hear) He knew when to break lose from Lester.

Talking NGDB, I kinda' hear some of them in the Steep Canyon Rangers from Asheville.

[PappyCaligula]

While we're at it, a definition of the term Luddite which can be used as an adjective OR noun. (New World Dictionary ) :)

Lud·dite (ldt)

n.

1. Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.

2. One who opposes technical or technological change.

[After Ned Ludd, an English laborer who was supposed to have destroyed weaving machinery around 1779.]

[grundoon51]

There's a cut around here somewhere of Earl and John McEuen doing the same version of "Soldiers Joy" as on WTCBU--Those guys can do accoustic when they want to; better than the purists

[PappyCaligula]

Thanks..I'll look for it. I like the fact that the REAL musicians can do it IF needed. Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings for example. But most of the wannabe-purists have a deaf ear to even basic tuning. It's like it's kewl/gauche' to be a half-pitch off. To "whine" into the mike. Back to the Dave Rawlings Machine, he and GIllian both use atleast two SM57's each for this guitars. But they know how to work them. The guys touring with them from old Crow use a combination of p/u and mics,

[grundoon51]

I've got it in my favorites and will send it to you if I can figure out how--The purists think being off key makes you cool or some such--I just discovered Gillian and think she's great,-- she's a pro, not a whiny amateur obsessed with being "authentic"

[PappyCaligula]

Thanks for the video!...Amazing thing about Gillian is authentic because she immersed herself in the culture of the music (Guthrie,etc) NOT just imitating it. She might not have been born into it, but she has definately been "baptised" by it. Yea, I know about those whiney amatuers..I might not be able to pluck a guitar or sing on key myself but my ears can tell the difference (both outer and "inner" if you get my drift?)

[grundoon51]

For a California kid who went to a fancy conservatory, Gillian does pretty well--she might have grown up singing it and had a grandpa who played the fiddle--like you say, she's definitely been baptized

[IBG67]

you're absolutely right. hell, scruggs WAS progress. he pioneered styles of playing based on old Dave Macon records and the like, that had never really been brought to the limelight. But...for the record....im an all acoustic man.

[PappyCaligula]

Acoustic is preferred no doubt BUT I like a mix of "both". Feedback just kills everything, and mandolins and some 6-strings and mics (SM-57's) just don't like each other. That being said, that's all Dave and Gillian use are 57's and 58's and NO more pickups. Thanks for reminding us of Uncle Dave Macon who I believe was much more of an influence on music than Bill Monroe's disciples can ever claim to be. Everytime I asked someone about Monroe, he had to be given "strained respect" .

[ray8up]

that banjo neck is so beautiful, not to mention the pickin

[Medium0Rare]

Doc is a classic face melter for sure.

[papillon83]

I love when Doc laughed at the end. I bet he is such a kind person.

[fridrikur]

@papillon83 Yes that is what you call an honest and true felth show of emotion. I love Doc, hard not to. I have always liked the way he said "we have all kind of mics here. This one must be the tape recorder mic' at the beginning of one of his first shows at the gerdes city in 1963 I believe. Great cd. Live at gerdes city

[McGrenzer]

@papillon83 Doesn't that laugh just say it all?!

[OldAndBlue]

This is quite nice.

[bigdjindustriez]

You can see Doc saying the frets/string numbers to himself. That's alot to remember. Very good video.

[oldhatband]

Wish they would have played "Golden Slippers" in that medley; great stuff!!!

[plucknpick]

Of all the banjo styles picked David is in a class by himself. I really like the Deering with the Tree of Life inlay too!