When you grow up about 15 miles away (as the crow flies) from Doc Watson as I did, you were never too far away to go catch a gig with Doc and his many friends and family. I was thrilled to learn that Doc would by performing at the yearly downtown festival in West Jefferson on the weekend of the fourth of July. The reason I was excited, is that my friend Glen and I would be running the sound at the stage Doc was to perform on. Doc was late to go on, and there wasn't time for a good "sound check" to fine tune everything. Without an introduction or warning, Doc just lit into a song. We starting adjusting knobs, highs and lows, midranges and EQ's, trying to make Doc sound as good as we could. As the last note to the song rang out, Doc thanked everyone, and yelled, "PLEASE TURN THE STAGE MONITORS DOWN!!! YOU'RE BLOWING ME AWAY UP HERE!" In our hast, we hadn't turned down the stage monitors that Doc used to hear his voice and guitar through. Needless to say, we adjusted the volume for Doc, forgetting that his hearing is much more sensitive, and that he didn't need heavy metal monitor volume like the rock band that had just performed before.

So here I stood, totally embarrassed by the world's top notch picker in the middle of Main Street in my hometown where everyone knows me. I had just blown Doc Watson away and he yelled at me. I could have crawled under a rock. Nice move there slick… The show went forward, Doc was in tune and funny, and it all ended well.

It got me thinking after Doc's funeral last week, how lucky I was to have that experience with him back around 1987, and how it turned into a learning moment for me in my career.

It's kind of funny that I almost blew Doc Watson away one time, but he blew everyone away every time he performed. I'll sure miss you Doc, and I promise to check the monitor levels next time I see you.