LENOIR, N.C. -- Country musician Merle Watson, who teamed with his father Doc Watson to snare two Grammy Awards, died Wednesday when his tractor overturned and pinned him beneath it. He was 36.
The accident occurred at 4:15 a.m. off a rural road about five miles north of Lenoir, the Caldwell County Sheriff's Department said. Watson died at the scene and his body was taken to Caldwell Memorial Hospital.
Sheriff Bliff Benfield said Watson was working with a bench saw repairing houses he owned in the area when a piece of wood struck his arm.
'Being there by himself he drove up to a neighbor's house to look at his arm and bandage his arm,' Benfield said.
When Watson drove away from the house he took too sharp a turn around the driveway and the tractor ran down an embankment and flipped over on top of the musician, Benfield said.
The blade caught Watson's lower back and pinned him beneath the tractor, he said.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
Doc Watson, who is blind, and his only son Merle, both North Carolina natives, were well-known folk and country musicians and singers in the 1960s and 1970s.
They specialized in old-time country-folk music after Doc Watson brought his son into the business in 1965 when Merle was 15.
The duo won two Grammy Awards during the 1970s for best ethnic or traditional recordings. The versatile group performed a variety of songs including, 'Blue Suede Shoes,' 'The Mississippi and You,' 'Salt Creek' and the country standard, 'Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms.'
