Thanks, Doc
I first met Doc South in the mid 1970s at one of his University of Alaska - Fairbanks music workshops, thereafter followed his playing at places like the old Howling Dog Saloon in Ester and at festivals that started up in the 70's. I think my brother Doug first dragged me along with him to one of Doc's classes. Before moving to Alaska in 1974, I had been learning banjo on my own where I grew up in Pennsylvania, using Pete Seeger's classic book, How to Play the Five String Banjo. That was an OK start for hootenanny – type folk music, but Doc opened my eyes and ears to a much wider universe of old-time and American traditional music and dance.
As I recall, Doc was putting together a pickup band for one of the University dances and he saw me standing there in the corner. I was probably 100 times more shy about playing in front of people than I am now, and was undoubtedly hoping in my own twisted way that he wouldn't notice me (and whether or not I could actually play the banjo back then would have been a liberal interpretation of the concept "play").
That encounter with Doc went something like this:
Doc: "whataya got in that case?" (an answer he obviously knew).
Me: "a banjo" (duh)
Doc: "Well what the hell good is it doin' in that case? Get it out and play it!"
Through one means or another, Doc was great at getting people to play and making us all feel included, regardless of our experience or ability (inclusiveness -- a legacy of Doc's that we all need to remember).
Another observation…. After I interviewed Doc last spring for the Old Time Herald article, one thing that struck me was the irony of Doc's move to Alaska in about 1970. As it became very clear during the interviews, Doc had been very active musically in his native Indiana before heading north. He played ("just bring your music" they used to say, referring to all traditional styles, rather than breaking it out as old-time, bluegrass, Irish, or folk as we tend to now), called dances, performed on radio and TV, and spread his enthusiasm through teaching. The irony was that the Indiana music and dance scene took off like a rocket in the early 1970s, just after Doc left (see, for example, John Bealle's 2005 book on the Bloomington music scene, Old Time Music and Dance: Community and Folk Revival). Based on his huge impact on Alaska's traditional music scene in the 70s and 80s, I'm totally certain Doc would've been at the core of the Indiana music revival had he remained there.
No complaints, obviously – their loss was our gain.
--Pete Bowers
