"that I saw Doc Watson canoeing over a mountain in the dark. . . . You couldn't tell he was blind. . . . There was moonlight in his hair.

I still haven't questioned how the canoe got over the mountain or how the river contrived to be running uphill.

He would be listening to the river's gurgle and plonk and the bell-toned night call of the Carolina wren. And there'd come the faint cry of a baby, from back up in the trees: most likely the wind but some might say a cougar.

The sounds would gather into guitar chords and melody and later Doc would play someplace in town, play a song like Deep River Blues, and somebody standing against the back wall would shake his head and say, 'It's like he just finds the music in the air.' "