wilkes

MerleFest is staged the last weekend in April of each year on the beautiful, flowering campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC. Wilkesboro is nestled in the foothills of the stately Blue Ridge Mountains which provide a natural amphitheater for this extraordinary event. MerleFest is deservedly known world wide as one of the most eclectic and awe-inspiring gatherings of Americana musicians and fans to be found anywhere.

MerleFest began on a modest scale two years after Merle's death in the fall of 1987 when Wilkes Community College Dean of Development Frederick W. "B" Townes, Bill Young, Doc Watson's close friend and "pickin buddy," and Ala Sue Wyke visited the legendary guitarist and Grammy award winner and his family at their Deep Gap, NC home. At this historic meeting, Townes and Young broached with Doc the idea of doing a benefit concert at the College to raise funds for a memorial garden in honor of Merle. Doc was receptive to the idea but his wife, Rosa Lee, and his daughter, Nancy, were even more excited by the prospect and suggested that a multi-day festival would more appropriately honor Merle's memory and his contributions to acoustic music. It was determined that many of Merle's friends, most of them accomplished acoustical musicians of considerable renown, should be invited to play and participate in this seminal tribute. It was on the wings of these excited thoughts that MerleFest took flight that chilly night in the Appalachian mountains and it has been flying progressively higher ever since. The first MerleFest took place in late April of 1988 with a relatively small number of artists playing on stage in Wilkes Community College's John A. Walker Center and on the deck of two flatbed trucks to a crowd of 4,000 people.

Doc Watson's musical style and heritage have been cited many times over his career as inspiration by many performers, and is the primary reason why musical diversity has become a hallmark of this gathering. Although he has played at innumerable bluegrass festivals, Doc's songs and his picking style reach back even further, to the sounds of the old country string bands and the ballads of the hill country. This eclectic blending of style and tradition has won Doc Watson several Grammy Awards, and his taste is evident in the selection of artists who have performed at the festival staged in tribute to his son. Acoustic music afficienados who have attended MerleFest over the years have seen performers as diverse as the Mehaden Chanteymen, who sang work songs of the Afro-American fishing communities in eastern Carolina, the Russian bluegrass band Kukuruza and, in a special performance, one of the best known groups in American bluegrass, the Johnson Mountain Boys. In addition, blues music has been heard from the guitars of Richard Watson (Merle's son and Doc's grandson) and Roy Bookbinder, internationally known musician Raffi has performed enchanting children's songs, and the Fairfield Four has rendered gospel harmonies as only they can.

The audiences which have traveled to Wilkesboro in increasingly large numbers for MerleFest's of the past have been as diverse as the musicians they come to hear. Many fans are of the baby boom generation, but listeners of all ages can be seen, and when surveyed as to which performers they'd like to see at future festivals, responses ranged over the musical spectrum from Bela Fleck to Dolly Parton to Jerry Garcia. Many of the leading figures and companies have become interested in MerleFest, as well. Homespun Tapes, one of the country's leading distributors of tapes for learning acoustic music, sponsors a learning stage in the Pit Auditorium where festival artists have provided intensive instruction on fiddle, guitar, banjo and other instruments.

WarnerSongs of Nashville, Tennessee, sponsors the Chris Austin songwriting contest in memory of Chris, a member of country singer Reba McEntire's band who died in a plane crash in 1991. A songwriting stage has been added to the festival, featuring workshops and performances by many of the best songwriters in the business, including Si Kahn, Tim O'Brien, Cathy Fink and Paul Craft. Proceeds from the songwriting contest have helped sponsor a music scholarship at Wilkes College.

A traditional music and dance stage presented by Old Time Herald Magazine and the North Carolina Arts Council has become a popular and integral part of the festival. Visitors to this area can learn and participate in traditional dances, as well as hear some of the great old-time music. In 1992, North Carolina Public Television, under the direction of producer Michael Sheehan, worked with the community college staff to tape all four days of the festival. The crew shot more than 125 hours of videotape which was then edited to an eight-part series, "Pickin' for Merle." The series has been shown on public television stations in North Carolina, and is now in national distribution. A two-hour highlight video of the festival was also prepared and is available from the college. Public radio has aired segments of the Watson Festival in various areas of North Carolina, and in 1994 the crew of the National Public Radio's "E-Town" was on location to tape the festival for replay to its fans.

This musical tribute to Merle is given physical, lasting form in the Merle Watson Memorial Garden for the Senses, which was established with proceeds from the first festival in 1988 and continues to be maintained and supported by revenues from the festival. Because of Doc Watson's sensitivity to the needs of the visually impaired (he has been blind since childhood), it was decided to develop the garden with highly fragrant plants with tactile appeal, braille identification markers and other features designed to make it the premier garden for the visually impaired in the United Sates. World-renowned horticulturists, have been retained to provide expertise in the selection of plants for Merle's garden as the completion have entered the final stages. The garden is prominently located in the approximate center of MerleFest activities and may be visited by festival attendees.

Many fans have been asked in the past for their opinion on what forces have converged to make MerleFest one of the most revered acoustic music festivals in the world and their answers have predictably run the gamut of possible reasons, but Doc Watson himself has provided a definitive answer. "I have wondered about that, but I really couldn't put my finger on why they love it unless it's the fact that the music for the most part is down to earth. If you think about music, especially the kind of music Merle and I played and the good traditional music of this country, it's the lives of people set to lyrics and sounds. It talks about their joys and sorrows and in the in-betweens . . . So it expresses the feelings of people and maybe that's what crosses the bridge." So sayeth the Doctor. The jury rests!