Deep Gap: Where Doc Watson Was Born

Deep Gap takes its name from a natural low point in the Blue Ridge where the highway cuts through. The Blue Ridge Parkway crosses here at milepost two hundred seventy-six. It is a quiet spot in Watauga County, best known for Christmas tree farms and hiking trailheads.

But on March third, nineteen twenty-three, a boy named Arthel Watson was born here. He lost his sight to an eye infection as a baby, grew up hearing the old mountain music, and taught himself to play guitar. He called himself Doc. In the nineteen sixties, Doc Watson arrived at the Newport Folk Festival and introduced flatpicking to a national audience. He took fiddle tunes and made them dance on a six-string, faster and cleaner than anyone had heard. He won seven Grammy Awards and a lifetime achievement award in two thousand four. He died in two thousand twelve. The gap is still quiet. The music he made from it is everywhere.