Arguably, there have been three influential country folk guitar players in the twentieth century: Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Doc Watson, a brilliant flat-picking guitarist from Deep Gap, North Carolina.

Unlike Travis and Atkins, Watson was middle-aged before he gained any attention through the release of his first album, The Doc Watson Family, in 1963. The record is a mixture of folk, country, and bluegrass and was an influential record for guitar players in the early 1960s. His appearances at the Newport Folk Festivals in 1963 and 1964 stunned musicians, who were amazed to hear such virtuoso playing from someone from the backwoods. Performers of folk music and country alike — such as Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Clarence White, Emmylou Harris, and many others — acknowledge Watson's influence on them. Watson has provided a further service to country and folk music by sharing an almost encyclopedic knowledge of many American traditional songs.

While Merle Travis and Chet Atkins started on acoustic guitars and moved to electric, before Watson's “discovery” during the folk revival in the early 1960s, he played electric in a local all-purpose band that performed current rock, swing, country — and, of course, folk music.

Watson was struck blind at an early age. When he was ten, his father gave him a homemade fretless banjo, which Doc played consistently for the next three years. Around the same time, he began attending the School for the Blind in Raleigh, North Carolina. At the age of thirteen Doc began playing guitar, and six months later Doc and his older brother Linney began performing on street corners, singing traditional numbers.

By his late teens, Watson had learned fingerpicking from his neighbor, Olin Miller. In 1941, Watson joined a band that had a regular radio program in Lenoir, North Carolina. On this show he earned his nickname; one of the announcers referred to the guitarist as “Doc” during the broadcast. For the next six years he played around North Carolina.

In 1947, he married Rosa Lee Carlton, the daughter of fiddler Gaither W. Carlton. To pay the bills, he worked as a piano tuner. In 1953, Watson joined the supporting band of a local pianist and railroad worker named Jack Williams, where he played electric guitar and performed a variety of music, from country to rock and pop. After staying with Jack for eight years, Watson joined the Clarence Ashley String Band.

From 1964 onward, Watson recorded nearly one record a year through the decade. No sooner had interest in folk music waned than Watson was back in great demand because of the three-disc Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a watershed album in 1972 created by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which featured Watson, Travis, Roy Acuff, and a virtual Who's Who of country greats. Merle Watson, Doc's son and a serious talent in his own right, began appearing with his father regularly. The pair won two Grammys for traditional music, in 1973 and 1974.

Father and son played together for more than fifteen years, until Merle died tragically on the family farm in 1985. Following his son's death, Doc Watson has continued with his appearances, showcasing his beautiful voice, his great instrumental talent, and his mastery of traditional material.