Details
Track Listing
1. Tom Dooley
2. Alberta
3. Froggie Went a-Courtin'
4. Beaumont Rag
5. St. James Hospital
6. Muskrat
7. Down in the Valley to Pray
8. Blue Railroad Train
9. Rising Sun Blues
10. Shady Grove
11. My Rough & Rowdy Ways
12. Train That Carried My Girl From Town, The
13. Black Mountain Rag
14. I Was a Stranger
15. Blueridge Mountain Blues
16. Country Blues
17. Groundhog
18. Little Orphan Girl
19. Blackberry Blossom
20. Going Down This Road Feeling Bad
21. Rambling Hobo
22. Little Omie Wise
23. Handsome Molly
24. Whitehouse Blues
25. I Want to Love Him More
26. Way Downtown
Album Notes
Recorded live at the Newport Folk Festivals in 1963 & 1964.
A reissue of Vanguard's original double-LP (condensed here to one CD), THE ESSENTIAL DOC WATSON includes 26 tracks of Watson in his most traditional, folksy mode, with his stunning flat-picking guitar technique and warm, unadorned singing in fine form. The disc's first half focuses on studio sessions--some solo, some with accompaniment--while the second half is taken from Watson's mid-1960s Newport Folk Festival appearances.
The performances throughout are top-notch. Watson's flawlessly fluid guitar work is a wonder (most notably on instrumentals like "Beaumont Rag"), and he sounds as at ease singing a cappella ("Down in the Valley to Pray") as he does backed by additional musicians ("The Train That Carried My Girl from Town"). The program includes traditional songs ("Tom Dooley" and "Little Omie Wise"), as well as tunes by Jimmy Rodgers ("I Was a Stranger") and Dock Boggs ("Country Blues"), with Watson bringing each song to life with his incisive, sincere renditions. As a one-stop, economical introduction to this folk legend, THE ESSENTIAL DOC WATSON is hard to beat.
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