Sunday, however, the revered, still fleet-fingered guitarist who got his nickname from Sherlock Holmes' sidekick - "I always did like Sherlock's stories" - makes a rare appearance in Glenside at the Keswick Theatre.
The show, in which Watson will be accompanied by multi-instrumentalist David Holt, with banjo player Tony Trischka opening - is a benefit for the Philadelphia Folksong Society, which is putting on the 50th Philadelphia Folk Festival in August.
Taking a break from caring for Rosa Lee, his wife of 64 years, the octogenarian icon recently talked from his home in Deep Gap, N.C., about his memories of playing Philadelphia clubs during the folk revival of the 1960s, his favorite guitarists, and the state of his own playing nearly 80 years after first picking up a guitar.
Question: Do you remember your first experiences listening to music growing up?
Answer: My dad and two of my brothers worked for an uncle who bought a big old Victrola. And my dad and the boys worked half a week and he gave me that thing, and 50 records. Everything from the blues singers to the more modern music. I was 5 years old then.
Q: That would have been in 1928. What was the modern music? Al Jolson?
A: Right. You said the name that was just about to roll off my tongue. That, and mostly the black blues. I'm thankful that Dad wasn't a racist. My mother was, a little bit.
Merle and I, my boy, we loved the blues when we got into the music together when he grew up, we got to know and love lots of the people - John Hurt, and Brownie [McGhee] and Sonny [Terry], all those people.
Q: Great players.
