- published: 23 Dec 2014
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Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson (March 3, 1923 – May 29, 2012) was an American guitarist, songwriter, and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues, and gospel music. Watson won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music were highly regarded. He performed with his son, guitarist Merle Watson, for over 15 years until Merle's death in 1985 in an accident on the family farm.
Watson was born in Deep Gap, North Carolina. According to Watson on his three-CD biographical recording Legacy, he got the nickname "Doc" during a live radio broadcast when the announcer remarked that his given name Arthel was odd and he needed an easy nickname. A fan in the crowd shouted "Call him Doc!" presumably in reference to the literary character Sherlock Holmes's sidekick Doctor Watson. The name stuck ever since.
An eye infection caused Doc Watson to lose his vision before his first birthday. He was taught by his parents to work hard and care for himself. He attended North Carolina's school for the visually impaired, The Governor Morehead School, in Raleigh, North Carolina.
I was born about six thousand years ago
They ain't nothin' in this world that I don't know
I saw Old King Pharaoh's daughter find Little Moses on the water
And I can whip the man that says it isn't so
I saw Noah when he built that famous ark
I slipped into it one night when it got dark
I saw Jonah swallowed by the whale, and I pulled the lion's tail
I can whip the man that says it isn't so
I'm an educated man, to get more sense within my head I plan
Well, I've been on earth so long, and I used to sing a little song
While all of them old timers took their stand
Queen Elizabeth fell dead in love with me, (hee, hee, she did)
We was married in Milwaukee secretly
Then I took her out and shook her, and I went with General Hooker
To fight mosquitoes down in Tennessee.
I taught Solomon his little A B C's (smart feller)
And through all his books, I tutored him with ease
Then I sailed out on the bay with Methuselah one day
And I played with his flowing whiskers in the breeze
I'm an educated man, to get more sense within my head I plan
Well, I've been on earth so long, and I used to sing a little song
While all of them old timers took their stand
I seen old Satan when he searched that Garden o'er, (old booger)
Saw Adam and Eve driven from the door
When the applese they were eating, from the bushes I was a-peeping
I can prove it from the man that ate the core
I saw Cain when he killed Abel with a spade
And I know the game was poker that they played
I was hid behind the shrub when he slapped him with that club
Poor old Abel caught him a-cheatin', and now he's dead
I'm an educated man, to get more sense within my head I plan
Well, I've been on earth so long, and I used to sing a little song