Ballads From Deep Gap

Doc and Merle Watson, Doc Watson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 26, 1991)
• Original Release Date: 1967
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Vanguard Records
• ASIN: B000000EFA
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,624 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a near-masterpiece from two American masters, November 20, 1998

By 

Jerome Clark (Canby, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ballads From Deep Gap (Audio CD)

By now Doc Watson has been recorded so often that he's begun to seem like the Lightnin' Hopkins of Appalachian music. Like that great, much-documented Texas bluesman, though, he's so good that you suspect that he could do it in his sleep (actually, in the occasional less than fully inspired concert, that's exactly how he sounds). Even by Watson's elevated standards, however, Ballads from Deep Gap (recorded in 1967, released four years later) stands out. It's long been one of my favorite of his recordings, and it's stood up to a quarter century's listening. Longtime enthusiasts of old-time, bluegrass, early country, and folk balladry will recognize the chestnuts here -- "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms," "The Cuckoo," "Stack O'Lee," "Willie Moore," "Alabama Bound" -- and not complain in the least at Doc and his late son Merle's warm, assured approach; not a stale note sounds here. Doc takes a turn at yodeling in a couple of tunes, Jimmie Rodgers's classic "My Rough and Rowdy Ways" and Alton Delmore's obscure delight "Gambler's Yodel," and pulls off a fine comic performance of the venerable medicine-show song "Travellin' Man." With two great American musicians at the top of their game, everything works. Doc and Merle take joy in what they are doing and they take the listener along. Ballads from Deep Gap is not just lovely; it's just plain lovable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars JBERTSIESFAVS, February 9, 2009

By 

R. M. Jansch "JBERTSIE" (MINNEAPOLIS MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ballads From Deep Gap (Audio CD)

I don't think there ever will be as great a duo of quitar/banjo players

as Doc and the late great Merle Watson. Two of the greatest additions to

anyones music library would be Two days in November and Ballads from Deep Gap. I listen to them as much today as when I accidently stumbled across

these gems in my brothers record collection some 30 yrs ago.