The Chetboard

In 1979 the reflections album was a dream come true if you liked Chet and Doc (who knew they ever met)
It was a little more Doc dominant, but that was ok,
after looking at youtube videos of Chet and Doc in rare appearances (Tennile and Caas)
It finally sunk in,,,, Reflectons is acually a Doc Watson album.
Sure Chet knew all the fiddle tunes all his life and could play on a common ground with basically Docs material.
Why? Face it,,, Could Doc have played Cascade? How high the moon? Snowbird? Blue Angel??
I think that was,for all of Docs talent,, out of his League.,,,
Yet since Chet could easily pick up Beumont rag and such they just did Doc material
I still love the album,, but it was more of a Doc album
rant over God bless them both
Rick

Rick, I definitely agree with you. I believe that Chet was the more flexible of the two. I doubt that Doc would have blended well with Chet in the songs that you mentioned. I always liked the recording quality of that album and I especially liked Chet's smoothness and little "unexpected surprises" throughout. I made a cassette of that album right after it came out and played it in my car back in 1980 or so. That little run he plays in the "Texas Gales/Old Joe Clark" medley had me just about running off the road! I agree that it was more of a "Doc album" but Chet is the reason I bought it in the first place. I always enjoyed hearing how Chet would fit in with others. Ironically, some have discovered Chet on some of those duet albums because their focus was on whoever his partner was. I've had several friends who were Mark Knopffler fans and it was his album with Chet that led them to discovering Chet. Once they told me this, I then led them to more of Chet's music and enjoyed watching them be blown away.

Doc told me a couple of years ago that he was reluctant to do the recording because Chet's playing was "way above mine", but then he was told that it was Chet's idea he could hardly turn him down. He said they spent the first day in the RCA studio recording the songs then Chet took him out to a restaurant and "that's when I got to know Chet". The next morning they went back to what Doc thought was to clean-up the previous day's recordings, but Chet said "No, that was just practice, and today we will record it for real". Doc was very pleased when the CD recording was reissued on his Sugar Hill label although it was originally on RCA.