SMN: When we talked for a little bit yesterday, you told me that you were more proud of your work on “Legacy” than any other you’ve done. How so?

David Holt: I combined a lot of the things I’ve learned over 30 years, the first being a good enough musician to play with Doc Watson, and then being a good enough interviewer to pull something out of Doc, because he’s never really told his life story before. And third, being able to produce something like this and interviewing everybody from Ry Cooder to Joan Baez. My friend Steven Heller helped me with the production process, but I would say it took me 30 years to build up to something like this. The main reason I’m proud of it is I feel that Doc is the premier folk musician in the United States. It will be useful for a lot of people for many years.

SMN: I read that Doc never wanted to put his biography down in words. Why did “Legacy” appeal to him?

Holt: I’m guessing that he could speak his own story, and I think he trusted me to put it together into a way that would honor him but wouldn’t be over the top. He doesn’t like gratuitous compliments or dishonesty or confusing (or wrong) statements by the media. I was very careful. I think he trusted me because I could combine the music aspect, the friendship aspect, and the folklore aspect. I guess that’s what I would say; you would really have to ask him (laughs).

SMN: When you first did the “Hills of Home Tour” [a tour with David, Doc, and Doc’s grandson, Richard. The trio would play and David would intermittingly interview Doc about his life in front of an audience) did you realize you were going to interview Doc, or was it more of a spontaneous thing?

Holt: When we first did the Hills of Home Tour (the interview) was the special aspect of the show. Of course, we went back and forth. I basically would take charge and talk to him about different subjects each time. It kind of came together naturally.

SMN: When did you first meet Doc?

Holt: I met him for the first time in 1972. I was just starting then, and he was already pretty well known. He was sitting at an outdoor back stage at this little festival and nobody was sitting with him, and I just went back there and started talking to him. I was really impressed by the kind of mind he had, and the kind of person he was. He was very friendly and outgoing and happy to show a young guy a couple of things. I had come to the Southern mountains in part because of his music.

Musically, he’s taught me to listen. A blind person can really listen better than a sighted person. Doc was someone whose whole career was made through listening and putting feeling into his music. It just really helped me focus on everything from tuning a guitar or tuning a banjo. He really listens when he’s tuning; he gets it just right. There’s a way he says a certain word in a song, or sings a certain word. Every note he puts in, he’s probably processed it in some way and thought about it. It’s amazing to me how thoughtful he is with everything musically.

SMN: I read a quote from your website that you had asked Doc what he dreams about...

Holt: He told me the very first time I met him at the festival. I have a tendency to interview folks no matter what (laughs) and I was just curious how blind folks dream. And he just said, “Well, I dream in feelings, pure feelings.”

SMN: What events led you away from playing drums (I think you were in a band called the Sun Rays) and into the spectrum of traditional music?

Holt: The band was actually the Persuaders, but the record we did came out on a Sun Rays reissue. Some of the Sun Rays were in that band (They had a few hits and were actually fairly popular band during the surf music days).

I played drums in high school, but when I went to college in San Francisco I left my drums behind. I was in the dorms and I couldn’t really take them with me. Two years after I started school I was beaten up [when David was 21 years old he was attacked by three men in a random act of violence and left for dead]. After that happened, I turned to a more primitive music. My feelings were so raw. I really felt like singing at that point, and I had never sung before.

I first got into the cowboy music. That was my first encounter with collecting and realizing that you could go visit people and learn from them. Right after I got my jaw broken [from the attack] I went and found the old cowboy singer Carl Sprague. After that I just kept following the folk music back from there.

SMN: Tell me a little about your first trip to the Southern mountains with your college roommate, Steve Keith, and who were some of the first musicians you met?

Holt: I realized from going to see Carl Sprague that he was the last of the old cowboy singers. And then I found out that there were literally thousands of people who recorded in the 1920’s and were alive in the Southern mountains. I was looking to get back to a more Southern culture; I was tired of the California thing. When I came back to the Southeastern mountains, I met people like Tommy Jarrell (from Mount Airy), Fred Cockram ... a lot of these people’s pictures are on my website, and a lot of them I met on my first trip. I was absolutely amazed by how much music there was, and how willing people were to show you.

SMN: And you weren’t used to this back home?

Holt: It didn’t really exist anywhere else in the country. The great thing about the Southern mountains is that there was, and still are, the fiddler’s conventions, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, and the Smokey Mountain Folk Festival. Those things were all around the mountains and it wasn’t hard to find these folks at the festivals. Every weekend they were getting together. Trying to find them individually took a lot longer, but you could go to these fiddler’s conventions and there would be hundreds of people playing.

SMN: I read that your family was full of doctors, lawyers, and engineers [laughter from Holt]. How did they take to you being a full on music addict?

Holt: They weren’t too excited. They didn’t really know what to think. I was very headstrong and told them this was what I was going to do. There was no two ways about it. I was making my own money, and doing my own work. It’s kind of amazing when I look back on it. I had little money, but I didn’t require much to live on. I was just bound and determined to study and learn it. I didn’t really think I was going to be able to make a living. I didn’t have any idea because I wasn’t good enough. But I knew I had a passion that I couldn’t resist. The trip started it all, and it hasn’t waned yet (laughter).

SMN:You moved to Asheville in 1972, and you had your very first concert here. You had talked to the head of the Asheville library to get the gig. What was that first concert like?

Holt: The head of the library was John Bridges. I went and talked to him and he told me that I could do a free concert (they weren’t going to actually charge anybody). I worked up all this material, and it was the first time I had gotten up in front of an audience. I got them to sing along, and I realized that it was a pretty easy way to get people to have a good time, I really enjoyed the aspect of getting up in front and leading folks. I’m basically a shy person, and here was a chance to have my space and take charge and let people walk away from the concert knowing they had a good time.

I was nervous, yeah, and it was probably pretty bad (laughs). I would love to hear the tape from it. I can tell you I was enthusiastic and I was honest about who I was. I’ve never tried to pretend like I was a mountain guy. I was the guy who loved the music and moved here because of that.

SMN: I would like to talk about some of your instruments (they can be found on David’s website), since some of them are so unique looking and they each carry a fascinating history. I’ll start with the Deering 5 String Banjo, which has a lot of signatures on it from other musicians...

Holt: When I was doing this show, “Fire on the Mountain” on the Nashville Network, I had everybody on the show that did traditional music. I just started getting them to sign the inside of the banjo head. This one has some of my heroes — Grandpa Jones, Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley. I got the idea for the banjo because I had written a civil war play, and I realized that the old minstrel banjos were four inches deep, almost like a drum part. So Deering was kind enough to make something of my design.

SMN: The Mouth Bow?

Holt: The origin went back to primitive man. It was the very first stringed instrument. I first saw it up in Sodom from a guy named Morris Norton. He was playing it completely as he had learned it from his folks. He was a mountain guy: he never performed it live. It was never a gimmick, it was an instrument to him.

SMN: How does the paper bag come into play at your shows?

Holt: That was also from Morris Norton. It sounds like a snare drum, and I usually play a harmonica at the same time [David then proceeds to imitate the sound].

SMN: The slide guitar carries a lot of resonance with you. First off, why is it such a unique instrument and how did it help you through your daughter’s death [David’s 10-year-old daughter, Sara Jane, was killed in a car accident 12 years ago. He took up the slide guitar soon afterwards].

Holt: When Sarah died, I was just so blue. I continued to play my other music, but it just didn’t hit that place ... a very sad tragic place. The slide guitar was able to speak what I was feeling. It has a particularly big and rich tone, and I play it with a Craftsman’s socket on my finger and that slides into the notes. And because you can do that, you can get every variation of what your voice can get. It’s a very difficult instrument and once I got into it, I realized it was probably going to take the rest of my life to get it. I’ve been going at it for 10 years now, and I feel like I finally have something to say with the instrument.

SMN: Why is important to carry on the traditional music of folks like Doc Watson and others?

Holt: We live in an incredibly commercial world and it’s not heartfelt. Most of it is not for our own good, from the food we eat to the music we listen to. The traditional music was not made for profit; it was made for soul. I remember I mentioned to Doc Watson one time that I feel like the spirits of the old people are in the music. There’s a little bit of Grandpa Jones on there, there’s a little bit of Morris Norton, there’s a little bit of all these old mountain people in the music as it’s being played. No matter if I’m playing or someone else. It’s the real soul of our country.

SMN: How do you keep the children in the audience entertained?

Holt: I try to be honest with them and never talk down to them. I have performed for a million children worldwide (where they’re actually sitting in the audience, not counting television). I know what songs and stories they like. I try to find things that appeal to that age level.

SMN: How and why did you begin to instill stories in your sets?

Holt: I started out performing for children, and I found out they love stories. There’s a certain age from 7-12, and they love to exercise their imagination with a good story. I found it basically the same with adults. It has to be a different story, but an adult will stand transfixed with stories — like the last living survivor of the Titanic. A different part of their brain and body are entertained. It makes for a more overall entertaining concert. I perform solo, so having variety is important.

SMN: Since you host Riverwalk, I was curious if you’ve immersed yourself in the urban culture (where jazz began) like you have the mountain culture ...

Holt: Not really. It just isn’t time. If only there were more hours in the day [laughs]. That’s why I’ve never played on Riverwalk, or worked myself up to play with a band. There’s only so much you can do well, and the rest you do poorly. The best I’m going to be able to do is host and tell the stories of jazz. I’m 55 now, and I know what my limits are and what I can do for this lifetime. At this point, it’s a matter of keeping up with what I already do and going forward with that. My motto is ‘be good and get better.’

SMN: It’s fascinating that jazz and mountain music are closely tied to each other...

Holt: The jazz on Riverwalk is from the 20’s through the 40’s, and it’s the same period as the golden age of country music. All of this stuff was being recorded for the first time and there was a lot of innovation. A lot of people were coming out of the folk, jazz, and country world, and it was the same time, historically, as the end of WWI, the Titanic, the Depression, and the beginning of WWII. The cultural history was the same, and in the beginning (this is an over-generalization) the white folks were making country and the black folks were making jazz. Then they crossed over pretty quickly and began working together. It was the same in the city as in the country

SMN:You played with a lot of the old time musicians who were mainstays in Canton —Laura Boosinger and Charles Gidney. What kind of impact did they have on the mountain music scene?

Holt: Laura and I both played with Luke Smathers. I played banjo with him for eight years and Laura played him with 13. The Smathers String Band had been together since 1927, and they were a wonderful combination of mountain music, swing music, and jazz. But they put a mountain stamp on it. It was some of the finest musicians out there in Haywood County, all together in this band, playing this very lively but unusual form of mountain music. Then there was Quay Smathers who had a family band, and all his daughters still play music. He taught the old-timey shape note singing.

SMN: Champion gave a lot of these musicians’ jobs where they could afford to play on weekends and not have to leave to make a living.

Holt: I know Champion bought them horns. They started an orchestral band and all those old-timey guys learned to play horns. They were still playing mountain music, and a lot of what they learned on horns was in their mountain music.

SMN: You mentioned that you picked kind accessible mentors that you could visit with and become friends. If the roles were reversed and some young musician came to your doorstep, what would you teach them?

Holt: I hope I am that kind of accessible person, and I’m actually starting to get young folks visiting me. But, I’m gone a lot and I’m not usually as accessible as some of the old-timers. I probably will be when I begin to slow down. But I’m still 55, so I’m not quite an old-timer yet. I hope I get to be there. I think valuing your elders and looking for people you can learn from is important. I also think one thing that you have to instill in folks that it is a music that’s passed on from person to person, face to face, knee to knee. They have to take that responsibility and send it on to the next generation. It’s only going to live by people playing it. It can be recorded and put on TV and all that, but it’s not live when that’s happening.