In the song “Dublin Blues,” Texas musician Guy Clarke says, “I have seen the David, the Mona Lisa too, I have heard Doc Watson play the Columbus Stockade Blues.” Some might say that’s like comparing supper at a Cracker Barrell with tea at Harrod’s. But after attending the annual traditional music festival the late Doc Watson created in honor of a son who died tragically, I’ll go further than Clarke: Watson’s Merlefest, held in April in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina, just might be one of the last living vestiges of Western culture, of which the work of Michelangelo and Da Vinci are mere reminders.
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