Website for Doc Watson. (born Arthel L. Watson in Deep Gap, North Carolina [Watauga County] on March 23 , 1923) is a legendary performer with a vast, eclectic repertory who blends traditional old time string band and Anglo-Celtic folk music with blues, country, gospel, bluegrass, and popular favorites. Blind from infancy, Doc has spent his lifetime making music and is internationally respected as a supremely gifted and accomplished guitarist. (Sources: ibiblio.org and Southern Folklife Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

http://www.ibiblio.org/DocWat/

Doc and Richard Watson. Doc Watson talks about the sounds of his childhood and the wide variety of musical styles that he plays. He and grandson Richard offer examples. (RealAudio, 7:14 min.)

http://www.amroutes.com/ram/AR_0148DWatson.ram

"John Henry" is among the most important and widely-known American and African American ballads. "Tracking John Henry," writes Richard Spotswood, "is analogous to documenting the historical Jesus. In neither case do contemporary written records survive. In both cases, legends arose out of oral tradition later committed to paper. The resulting mythologies required no historical basis to sustain them; indeed, the legends might not have flourished had they been burdened with documentary detail. Christ the martyr became the symbol for universal human redemption, while John Henry's martyrdom symbolized the tension between manual labor and the industrial revolution, from which, at least for many, there was no redemption. His steam drill has come to symbolize worker obsolescence through every new industrial refinement from the cotton gin to computer-driven factories."

The ultimate "John Henry" website devoted to the history, legend, and music of the steel driving man. (Source: ibiblio, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)