CD Review: The Doc Watson Family - Tradition

Music is all around us. Pouring out from the radio and the concert halls. Dripping from the internet stream and the pod cast. Booming from the crowded discothèque and blues bars. Music is everywhere.

Some of the best music comes from places few have ever seen. In the empty pool halls, the back yards, the living rooms and thousands of garages there is beautiful, passionate, amazing music being played. Right now, from every corner of the globe, someone is playing a tune, singing a song.

Before there was DVD audio, CDs, 8 tracks and even vinyl records, there was a caveman sitting around a fire howling out a song about his battles to his cavewoman. Through time we moved out of the cave into cozier dwellings, but we’re still sitting around a fire, singing about our lives, loves, and losses.


Years ago I had the experience of sitting around in a living room with a bunch of people and singing and playing. And it was like a spiritual experience. It was wonderful. I decided then that was what I wanted to do with my life was to play music, do music. In the making of records I think over the years we’ve all gotten a little too technical, a little too hung up on getting things perfect. And we’ve lost the living room. The living room has gone out of the music. –Emmylou Harris

In 1977 Doc Watson released Tradition, a record designed to put the living room back into the studio. It is not so much of a studio record, as a family sing a-long – quite literally since Watson uses his real family as a band. Doc is playing grandpa here, picking the guitar and singing songs older than the entire family put together. Dolly Greer is the grandmother singing silly children’s songs on the porch and lonesome fiddle tunes in the kitchen. The rest of the family pitches in on guitar and banjo singing old timey tunes while we gather round to listen.

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Article Author: Mat Brewster

Mat Brewster is a periodic ex-pat wondering if he'll ever find a home. You can find him musing on pop culture, and obsessing over concert bootlegs at The Midnight Cafe.

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