In 2023, BGS was invited to Bryan Sutton’s Blue Ridge Guitar Camp in Brevard, North Carolina. Sutton is one of the most prominent proselytizers for Doc Watson in the 21st century, so it’s no surprise his annual camp just up the mountains from Watson’s hometown of Deep Gap is usually dripping with Doc’s music.

That year, one of Doc’s most famous guitars, “Ol’ Hoss” – a 1968 G-50 Gallagher Guitar that Watson played in the late ’60s and early ’70s and on many recordings – was also “in attendance” at Blue Ridge Guitar Camp. The instrument was one of the first of a few Gallaghers that Doc owned. BGS made the trip to Brevard to capture special video performances and interviews with many of the event’s instructors and pickers, each of whom played Doc tunes and shared stories and memories while picking Ol’ Hoss. It was a magical week in the mountains.

Now, for the very first time, we’re making select songs from these tapings available in a new series, the Ol’ Hoss Sessions. Three sessions pulled from the shoot will celebrate our Doc in December series. The first was published last week and features Bryan Sutton – watch here. The second, available today on BGS and our YouTube channel, finds guitarist, singer-songwriter, and community builder Courtney Hartman cradling Ol’ Hoss and finding that same magic – and so much life – within the instrument.

“To know that Doc held this guitar… it means a lot,” she says after being handed his Gallagher Guitar for the first time. “I think instruments are living,” she continues, “which means he’s still kinda living in it, also.”

Hartman certainly finds plenty of those ineffable Doc Watson touches alive within the instrument. Despite the fact that she’s translating Watson’s frailing banjo playing to the guitar, you can easily hear the cross-instrumental influence as she capos the six-string to make it as “chime-y sounding” as possible, emulating his clawhammer picking. “The Cuckoo” is known by a few different spellings/stylizations across Watson’s recorded catalog and it’s one of his most well-known numbers. Hartman offers the melody and lyric with tenderness, reverence, and intention, as she does in all of her artistic endeavors.

Whether teaching and performing at Blue Ridge Guitar Camp or bringing together her creative community to craft her brand new album, With You, in her work Hartman often reminds us that these sorts of transportive moments are what this music is really all about.

Stay tuned as we share more Ol’ Hoss Sessions right here on BGS and on our YouTube channel throughout the month.

Read our recent Cover Story interview with Courtney Hartman on her brand new album, With You, here.

Video Credits: I Know We Should, Brad Wagner and Juan Soria.