Associated Press photo Doc Watson was a special person and a special performer. He was the kind of guy who would travel all the way to Minneapolis from North Carolina for his one gig for the month, as he did in May 2010, his last performance in the Twin Cities. I interviewed him in 2000 to preview his concert at the Cedar Cultural Center. He died Tuesday at age 89. Here is the interview: By Jon Bream popmusic@startribune.com When his son and performing partner died in a tractor accident, folk-music hero Doc Watson immediately decided to retire. However, sometime between the accident and the funeral, he had a dream. It was a hot day in the desert and he was sinking in quicksand. Suddenly, out of nowhere, his son, Merle, approached.

"I knew I'd never get out of there, and he reached back and took me by the hand and said, 'Come on, Dad, you can make it,' " Watson said the other day. "That was a wonderful revelation to me. I had flat called the agent and told him to forget the whole deal. After the funeral, I called him back to reinstate the last job. I decided to try to get out there and provide for my family. Merle would want me to do that." Now, 15 years later, Watson, 77, still is going strong, performing with _ surprise _ Merle's son, Richard, who picked up the guitar in earnest after his father died. "It's a pleasure to have Richard playing music, walking along and doing some good blues licks in his daddy's stead. It makes it fun and enjoyable," Watson said. "And he's a good buddy on the road, someone you can depend on and enjoy being with." However, Richard, 33, doesn't travel much. He won't be with Watson on Monday at the Cedar Cultural Centre in Minneapolis. "He's a homeboy," said Grandpa. "I wouldn't do more than I had to if I was him, either. Richard does the local gigs with me _ North Carolina and Georgia. We drive to a bunch of 'em." Watson still lives in Deep Gap, N.C., the one-stoplight town where he was born. On a recent morning, he was building shelves in the basement when he took a break to chat on the phone. ("I don't just sit around. I find all kinds of things to do besides pick an old gi-tar.") He has cut back on performances, from about 100 in 1990 to 25 to 30 this year. Last year, he was in St. Paul for "A Prairie Home Companion." ("Garrison [Keillor] is a gas," he said. "I love to hear that man talkin.' His dry, English-type humor is wonderful.") One of Watson's most important gigs is the annual MerleFest, which drew 60,000 five weeks ago to Wilkesboro, N.C. "I always enjoy it, especially the sets with Merle's friends," he said. "We talked and told stories about the good things that happened with Merle. Bless the hush, they made CDs of the main sets. "It was absolutely special not only for Richard but for Merle's mother, his sister and his daughter as well. And lots of other people really enjoyed it. For a crowd that was as big as was out there, you could almost hear a pin drop except for the traffic noise." Last year, Doc and Richard Watson released "Third Generation Blues," a collection of classics, including "St. James Infirmary," "Milk Cow Blues" and "Summertime." "The 'Third Generation Blues' title and picture cover was Richard's idea _ Merle's slide guitar was a stand-in for Merle," Watson said. "It's been selling great. We'll do another one. And it'll touch on some other kinds of blues and other things. Lord willin,' nothin' goes wrong." . ONE-MAN ARCHIVE Watson has more than 50 albums to his credit since he and his distinctive flat-picking guitar style were discovered by folklorists in the early '60s. Last year, the New York Times called him "a one-man archive of songs from the Great Smoky Mountains and beyond." MusicHound Folk, a 1998 guide to folk albums, gushed: "It's difficult to grasp the far-reaching influence of Doc Watson on traditional American music. . . . He has bestrode the traditional music world like the colossus he is. A multi-instrumentalist, a wonderful singer with a rich, easy baritone voice, a treasure trove of traditional songs and an influence whose reach is incalculable (he popularized the practice of flatpicking fiddle tunes note for note on guitar, for instance)." Before he gained that lofty reputation, Watson had to overcome stage fright. "I'd worked coffeehouses. The first concert I did, it was so bad that when I heard the tape back _ they gave me a reel-to-reel copy _ I erased it. It was stage fright; it wasn't that I couldn't play no better than that. That was in 1964. The tour started March the 17th and ended May the 22nd when I came home. I never did a long tour like that again." Watson's performances are as educational as they are entertaining because he invariably talks about the history or context of each of the numbers he performs. He credits Smithsonian musicologist Ralph Rinzler, who discovered him, for encouraging him to do that. "I love to talk about them. Why not talk about the music you play? It makes sense. People seem to enjoy it. And another thing I've learned _ if I can't be informal and relax on the stage, I'll have to quit." .