Ora Watson (Watauga County, NC 1993)

Ora Watson (1911-2008) grew up in the Sugar Grove community of Watauga County, North Carolina. Her father, Arthur Isaacs, played old-time fiddle and banjo, and he was also a singer and dancer. Her mother, Mary Fletcher Isaacs, was a gospel singer in the church. By age eleven, Ora was adept on fiddle, and she and her sister and a cousin formed a band. Calling themselves the Isaacs Sisters, they played for parties, house dances, church socials, cakewalks, and fiddlers' conventions. Watson referred to her dancing as “buckdance” or “flatfooting,” but she also included Charleston steps that she learned in her youth. Active as a dancer and a musician throughout her life, she could still fiddle and dance at the same time, even at the age of eighty-two. Watson received the North Carolina Heritage Award in 1995. See: www.blueridgehe...
Music: Cecil Gurganus (fiddle), Mary Greene (guitar), Phil Jamison (banjo)
Recorded: Valle Crucis, NC (May 10, 1993)
For more about this Folklife Documentary Project, see “WNC Buckdancers, Flatfooters, and Charleston Dancers (1993)” at: www.philjamison...
Additional video with an extended interview and more dancing is available at the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina. See: search.lib.unc....
This project was made possible by sabbatical funding from Warren Wilson College.

[@patgreene5716]

Danced with ora back in the day,sure do miss her!

[@greanteawoman]

I loved Ora and miss her. She and Arlie didn’t have a car and I often gave them rides back to their home in Sugar Grove after they played at ‘Little PB Scott’s’ in Blowing Rock in the early to mid 70’s. We’d sing the whole way back to their house. Thank you for this wonderful footage.

[@CadillacL]

Whoo! Get it!!