James Watson inducted into Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame
Sixty years after he got his first broken banjo, James Watson of Roanoke was inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame for his years of accomplishment on the instrument.
The induction ceremony was Saturday, Nov. 24, and was the most recent of a number of awards Watson, now 72, has received through the years.
His banjo-playing uncle, Jack Edmondson of Wedowee, was responsible for James becoming a banjo player.
“It started from the time I was a little kid. He would play this song, “Shout, Little Lula,” and I grew up wanting to learn to play that tune on the banjo.”
James was 12 years old when he got his first banjo, a 1928 Wyman. It had a broken head, and Pappy Lee Farmer of Roanoke helped him get a calfskin head to put on it. He moved to a Gibson banjo in 1968, but that original banjo and an old D-18 Martin guitar he owned are still played from time to time by his cousin, Jay Arnold.
James never became fully proficient in the three-finger style of banjo picking championed by Earl Scruggs, instead learning a form of claw-hammer playing practiced by such notables as Grandpa Jones and Dave Macon. Watson’s proficiency in this form of playing earned him high finishes in the only two national contests he ever entered. In the nationals in Mountain View, Ark., he won fourth place nationally in 1984 and third place in 1985 for his banjo playing. His proficiency also earned him and invitation to perform at the famous Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia.
For 19 and a half years Watson traveled the east coast playing bluegrass banjo with Doodle Thrower and Golden River Grass. This group was nominated once for inclusion in the Country Music Hall of Fame but lost out that year to Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson.
Today James plays with a band called Randolph County, which was founded by Murphy Wilson. He and Clyde Cook are the only original members left in that group, which also includes Joe Thompson on mandolin, Dale Gentry on fiddle, Jeff Thompson on guitar and Betty Gentry on bass.
James Watson at his induction ceremony poses with former Golden River Grass fiddler and bandmate Randy Franks, who previously had played with Bill Monroe.
