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"Blind but Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson" (Encore presentation.)

On this installment of ST, which first aired in July, we're looking back on the life and music of the late Doc Watson, who died in late May at the age of 89. Watson was a truly legendary guitarist and singer whose work in the realms of folk, bluegrass, country, blues, and gospel music won him several Grammy Awards and universal acclaim. Despite being blind from infancy, he had a long, highly influential career; his guitar-playing (and especially his flat-picking skills) as well as his vast knowledge of traditional American music were, and still are, considered unequaled. Our guest is Kent Gustavson, Ph.D., who was formerly on the faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and is now a freelance writer and music journalist based here in Oklahoma. He's also the author of "Blind but Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson," an award-winning text that's recently been released in a revised and expanded second edition. (And just how great a "music legend" is Doc Watson, you might ask? Consider the people whom Gustavson interviews in these pages: Ben Harper, Michelle Shocked, Warren Haynes, Sam Bush, Bela Fleck, Tom Paxton, Maria Muldaur, Tommy Emmanuel, David Grisman, Edgar Meyer, Guy Davis, Jack Lawrence, Jonathan Byrd, Larry Long, Paddy Maloney, Robin Williams, Bill Frisell, Taj Mahal, and many others.)

Rich Fisher passed through KWGS about thirty years ago, and just never left. Today, he is the general manager of Public Radio Tulsa, and the host of KWGS’s public affairs program, StudioTulsa, which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in August 2012 . As host of StudioTulsa, Rich has conducted roughly four thousand long-form interviews with local, national, and international figures in the arts, humanities, sciences, and government. Very few interviews have gone smoothly. Despite this, he has been honored for his work by several organizations including the Governor's Arts Award for Media by the State Arts Council, a Harwelden Award from the Arts & Humanities Council of Tulsa, and was named one of the “99 Great Things About Oklahoma” in 2000 by Oklahoma Today magazine.
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