Doc Watson with Jack
Lawrence
At The Great American Music Hall, S.F.
 By Ted Silverman
Set 1: Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down, Rise When The Rooster Crows, Milk Cow Blues, Bye Bye Blues, East Bound Freight Train, Stoney Creek, He’s In The Jailhouse Now, A Roven on a Winter’s Night, Traveling Man, Sliding Delta, St. Anne’s Reel/Ragtime Annie Set 2: Brown’s Ferry Blues, I’m Worried Now, Precious Lord, Cora is Gone, If I Should Wander Back Tonight, Blue Moon of Kentucky, Train of Love, Special Angel, Florida Blues, Bye Bye Bluebell, St. James Infirmary, Greenville Trestle, Sweet Georgia Brown, Soldier’s Joy. IN THE ENTERTAINMENT-OBSESSED COMMUNITY of San Francisco, which boasts an astounding variety of live musical opportunities, it is indeed a testament to Doc Watson that his popularity and the quality of his art managed to result in two consecutive sold-out shows at the Great American Music Hall on March 18, 1998. Winding their way through the Western United States, this legendary flat picking master and his versatile right hand man, Jack Lawrence, played several strong sets en route to numerous other Northern California appearances. Due to the surging popularity of Doc Watson, tickets for these performances went remarkably fast. The evenings second show consisted of two solid and enjoyable sets of classic flat picked bluegrass, blues, ballads, spirituals and story songs that have been associated with Doc Watson for more than fifty years. Displaying an astounding grasp of Flatpicking and finger-style techniques combined with both vocal and instrumental harmonies Doc and Jack displayed remarkable versatility in the evenings program. Confounding the audience with precise fusillades of licks, these two pickers truly showed their innate comfort with the material and each other. They also showcased a strong familiarity with harmony vocalizations on many of the night’s choral passages. Doc’s extensive background in traditional music represents a fantastic slice of Americana and throughout the evening he touched on the wide spectrum of influences who have affected his musical psyche. His classic rendition of Jimmy Rodger’s He’s in the Jailhouse Now provided the appropriate and requisite yodelling breaks as well as the rich and humorous content of a great story - song. From the swing of Bye Bye Blues to the authentic sounds of Mississippi John Hurt’s Sliding Delta the scope of musical possibilities presented by this duet was both authentically presented and richly delivered The diversity of interest in the roots of American folk music have evidently affected Jack Lawrence, Doc’s now longtime travelling companion, picking pal and right hand man, as the selections he chose to deliver were equal to Doc’s choices in the pedigree of their roots. With such selections as the late, great Grandpa Jones’ East Bound Freight Train and Jim & Jesse McReynold’s Stoney Creek, Jack showed how years of touring with America’s foremost practitioner of guitar based Folk music has influenced his roots music research. Blind since birth, Doc somehow manages to reach any audience with a warm musical embrace. But his skills as a musician, albeit a visually impaired musician, are matched by the capacity of his charm, the sharpness of his wit and his sense of sheer delight at the life he leads. Along with this warm glow, Doc and Jack provide the listener with fiery licks, deadpan humour, warm and harmonically rich delivery and a broad musical repertoire. In the end it is both the pure musical sincerity and the sheer joy for life which one comes away with after any performance by this remarkable duo of fine Flatpicking masters. Backstage, following the performance, Doc was so exhausted that the planned interview was abandoned - it would have been cruel. Instead the writer hand delivered, along with a hardy “Hello!”, several different issues of NWBN, including those with Chris Wilson’s Appointment to See the Doctor in (Sept. & Nov. 1997), to Doc and Jack for them to read on the rest of their tour of the Western United States; they were very pleased to have them!
Ted Silverman, San Francisco.
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