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Review: For the purposes of this video, flatpicking guitar is the style that Doc Watson brought to the fore in the early 1960s and that has become a mainstay of the bluegrass world. The four artists featured, Watson, Norman Blake, Dan Crary and Tony Rice, are unquestionably legends in this field and each has brought something new to the genre. Their talents are excellently displayed here in a good mix of songs, instrumentals and band numbers.Watson is the old master, and he starts the film off with the piece that started it all, his arrangement of the fiddle tune Black Mountain Rag. Five more songs include the vocal Tennessee Stud and hot-picking medleys in which he trades leads with his son Merle and Jack Lawrence, who blend seamlessly with him while adding their own fill-ins.

Watson’s heirs have taken the music in varying directions. Blake is the traditionalist and, with cellist wife Nancy and fiddler James Bryan, his Rising Fawn String Ensemble sounds positively elegant on a fiddle medley that includes a lovely fingerpicked introduction, then brings back a pure Watsonian sound on Nashville Blues. Blake is an excellent technician, and he pays more attention to tone than speed, giving his work a rich, even flow.Rice is the musical intellectual of the bunch, always searching for new and experimental harmonies. Whether backed by his own band, dusting with Ricky Skaggs, or leading an all-star ensemble with Bela Fleck, Mark O’Connor, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, he mixes understated vocals with making his work more appealing to his fellow guitarists than it may be to the general listener. While his singing is pure and lovely, his playing often sounds like he’s thinking too much.

Crary is as experimental as Rice, maybe more so, but there is a musicality to his playing that makes him the most exciting guitarist on this video. He plays hard, brushing the strings to get a full sound that backs up his lead lines and renders further accompaniment superfluous, and his tone and taste are impeccable. He mostly stays within the standard repertoire, but his approach is always fresh and interesting. When he ranges farther afield on the baroque-influenced Lady’s Fancy he shows a unique musical sensibility that stretches the boundaries of the bluegrass genre without ever violating its spirit. – Sing Out!