I have a friend named Cordelia.   A few years ago, when a bunch of us were hanging out at a pub in Boston during a SIGGRAPH conference, she related this story.

Cordelia was born in 1967.  When she was a baby, her mother Mary went to a concert featuring a fellow named Doc Watson.  The babysitter had cancelled at the last minute, but Mary decided to go anyway, and bring her young baby with her.

Doc Watson is arguably the greatest American folk musician alive today.  Along with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bill Monroe, Doc took folk music out of the rural southern US and brought it to mainstream urban audiences in postwar America.  He made American country music smart and cool.  Doc had gone blind when he was a baby, back around 1923 or so, and his Dad gave him a guitar soon after.  He soon became a prodigy at it, and as a young man stunned people with a new, distinct style called flatpicking, a kind of guitar playing that emulated the chops of really flashy fiddle playing.  This was a new thing; before Doc Watson, guitars were much more background instruments in American country music.  He did traditional American and British-Isle folk songs with mastery that was downright pyrotechnic.

So in June 1967, Cordelia’s mom takes her seat in the Town Hall auditorium in midtown Manhattan, along with 1500 other people.  Cordelia is sleeping soundly in Mary’s arms.  She’s a good sleeper and pretty laid back in her temperament, so Mary is taking a calculated risk in bringing her.  Mary does not want to miss this performance.

And indeed, Cordelia’s an angel.  She sleeps and sleeps, occasionally waking up to let out a yawn, only to slip back into dopey, peaceful slumber.  Meanwhile, everyone else in the audience is wide awake, marveling at Doc, who’s performing onstage with his teenage son Merle.  Doc sits placidly with his guitar, but his hands are on fire.  He sings “Dig a little Deeper in the Well”, then he digs into “Shady Grove”, an old chestnut from the mists of English history.  He skips from “John Henry” to “Whitehouse Blues”.  Both songs about Death–one to a steel drivin’ man, the other to president William McKinley–but Doc yodels them with an almost eerie giddiness.  Ain’t no Death coming here tonight.  The place is alive in rapture.  As the concert crescendos to a rousing finish, Doc is just chewing up the room.

But then Cordelia stirs.

And starts to whine.  

Mary’s first thought about Cordelia’s whining is deep regret that she hadn’t thought to get an aisle seat when she’d bought the ticket.  Actually, she’s sitting in the geometric center of her row of 25 seats–12 people to her left, 12 people to her right. 

She’s holding out hope that Cordelia will quickly figure this out on her own, then go back to her almost-always-dependable serenity.  She rocks her baby, she caresses her nose, she coos to her with an increasingly frantic voice.   But Cordelia just isn’t buying it.  She begins to sob, then to cry, then to scream.

Doc is playing and singing “Tennessee Stud”, his signature song.  The audience is stomping its feet in time, but that stomping dies down as Doc’s flatpicking is joined by the woeful strains of a crying baby.  

Mary is now horrified.  The people in her row, the very people who are blocking her escape on both sides, look at her with concern and annoyance.  She has no idea what to do.  

Then Doc stops playing, mid-song.  

Cordelia’s wails are the only sounds echoing in the auditorium now.

Mary is now in tears herself.  She is paralyzed, a complete pariah, the center of attention in the center of the theatre.  And still, Cordelia cries in her arms.

Doc stares straight ahead without seeing into the audience.   He pauses, breathes.  Then he slowly hunches forward, and speaks into the microphone:

“Where is that baby crying out there?”

The house lights flicker on, so now everyone in the theatre who has working eyes is now staring at Mary and Cordelia.  But Doc continues to stare at nothing.  

Mary has no choice at all.   Slowly she arises from her seat, and responds haltingly, her words nearly drowned by Cordelia’s shrieking.

“That’s me.  I’m–sorry I’ll go–”

Doc interrupts:

“–Please, dear.  Come here with your baby.”

Mary looks to her left.  Instantly, all 12 people people blocking her exit scrunch their feet to their sides.   It’s the parting of the Red Seats.  Mary’s way is clear.  She shuffles and bumps down the row. Sorry, sorry, she repeats to everyone and no one.  Then she is in the aisle.

“Come here.  It’s alright.”

Mary shuffles down the aisle, 24 rows to the front of the stage.  For her this is like climbing Mount Everest.

As Mary slowly walks towards him, Doc motions to his son Merle to take leave of his seat.  Merle stands, walks over to the side of the stage where he takes Mary’s hand and leads her onstage, to the empty seat next to Doc.

“Come, dear.  Sit down.  What’s your name?”.  Mary sits. “I’m Mary.  This is Cordelia.  I’m…so sorry for this.”  Cordelia is still wailing.

Mary hears nervous hushed laughter from the dark, vast audience in front of her.

Doc lets out a laugh himself, then says into his microphone:

“Folks, this is what we’re gonna do.  I’m going to sing something just for this little baby Cordelia sitting here next to me.  It’s a lullaby.  We’re gonna make Cordelia go back to sleep now.  And this will be my last song of the evening.”  

He pauses as Cordelia lets out a particularly piercing shriek.  Then he continues: “When I’m done, I want you all to stay really quiet.  Don’t make a sound until this good woman and her baby here have a good head start out of here.” He whispers:  “Not a sound”.

The audience’s murmur dies down.  Doc turns to Mary, smiles and nods.  Then he begins to sing quietly, just his baritone voice, no guitar…as Cordelia continues wailing…

Hush my babe, lie still and slumber,

Holy angels guard thy bed

Heavenly blessings without number

Gentlie stealing on thy head…

Doc sings a second verse, then a third.  With each verse, his voice hushes, until by the last verse, it’s just a whisper. 

Cordelia has fallen into a deep sleep.

The Town Hall auditorium is completely silent.

Doc smiles in the direction of Mary and nods. Mary rises from her chair, and Merle escorts her to the steps leading off the stage.  She walks, with her baby, up the aisle, surrounded by the silence of fifteen hundred people.

She emerges into the lobby and looks into the sleeping face of Cordelia.  As she walks the length of the lobby toward the warm night of 43rd Street, she hears the audience, now muffled behind the lobby doors, erupt into thunderous applause.

Here’s Doc Watson doing “Tennessee Stud”…