Doc Watson

Before the skinny, bearded, plaid-wearing denizens of college campuses everywhere started listening to Fleet Foxes—even before Bob Dylan mined old Woody Guthrie songs—there was Doc Watson. A contemporary of Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs, the blind-since-childhood 88-year-old has played for and with everyone—including the bluegrass-loving Steve Martin. Doc Watson was an innovator in flat-picking guitar, and while he’s slowed down some, he surrounds himself with the best performers working today. Sure, there are plenty of washed-out and smoothed-over ancient rock stars charging hundreds of dollars for tickets, and it seems like every hot new band has a banjo these days, but here’s a rare, honest-to-God living legend. 

Updated 05/24/2011