Born Arthel Watson in Deep Gap, North Carolina in 1923, Doc Watson lost his sight before age two and went on to change how the acoustic guitar is played. This episode covers the radio audience that gave him his nickname, the dead chestnut trees he chopped to buy a mail-order Sears Silvertone, the mountain repertoire he memorized by ear, and the 1953 gig with Jack Williams' band in Johnson City where he played fiddle tunes on an electric Gibson Les Paul because the band had no fiddler.

The hosts explain how the light strings and low action of the electric guitar let Watson build blinding speed that he later carried back to the acoustic, and how Ralph Rinzler's advice to go fully acoustic launched him into the folk revival, from Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's and a Greenwich Village concert in 1961 to the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. They ...