OUR NEIGHBORS: Doc South honored for contributions to music

MAT-SU — The fingers and voice may be 82 years old, but they’re limber and spry picking and belting out an impromptu bluegrass ditty.

It’s a lazy Monday afternoon and Herman Harold “Doc” South is spending the day with his grandson. When the topic of his music is broached, South is as passionate as ever. Although he lives an unassuming life in his small home between Wasilla and Palmer, anyone familiar with traditional music in Alaska knows about Doc South.

Born into a musical family in Indiana in 1928, South first came to Alaska in the early 1970s and moved to the Valley in 1987. A psychiatrist by profession, South is a medical doctor, but has primarily been a musician since his retirement more than 20 years ago.

South is widely regarded as helping revive old-time music in the state in the early 1970s. In fact, writer Peter Bowers calls South a “key figure” in the movement in an article in the October-November issue of The Old-Time Herald.

That’s why South, a self-taught musician, was honored last month as Artist of the Year by the Alaska Folk Festival in Juneau.

“I never had a music lesson in my life — and you could tell if you ever played with me,” he said. “I just got into the thing as a kid. Back then, you had to entertain yourself. That was before TV. I had a radio, but most of the time it didn’t work, so I just got into that homemade music kind of thing.”

While many consider South a bluegrass musician — he plays, among other instruments, the fiddle, guitar, banjo and mandolin — he doesn’t like to label himself.

“I think it’s true to an extent,” he said about his impact on the old-time string revival. “I grew up with old-time music, only we didn’t call it that then. We just called it music. It’s all related, and I’m not a purist.”

Because he’s self-taught, South also said he doesn’t read sheet music and that his real enjoyment comes from the old-time musical community, which he calls “salt-of-the-earth people.”

“I think the people who play traditional music are just a wonderful group of people,” he said. “They’re very loyal to the music and tradition and to their own values and to society in general. They play more music for less money than anyone in the world, but they do it for the love of it.”

South’s music goes “hand-in-hand inextricably” with his love of traditional dancing, like square and contra. In his mind, most music is made to be danced to.

“Back in the days of big bands, that was the reason they had big bands,” he said. “Folks wanted to dance.”

Although he loves to see people dance while musicians perform, “there are some purists who disagree with that,” he said.

While some may consider dancing disrespectful to the musicians, “I’m glad to see people happy.”

South’s contributions to the Alaska music scene are appreciated beyond the state’s folk and bluegrass community. In March, the Alaska Legislature presented South with a proclamation “for his many contributions to the people of Alaska.”

The proclamation is detailed, saying that the “blending of Doc’s fiddling and dance calling with his youthful enthusiasm is arguably the foundation of the old-time string band revival in Alaska.”

The attention is fine, South said, but all along his music has been just a personal expression and passion.

“When they said they were giving me an award for lifetime achievement, I said to myself, ‘What lifetime achievement?’” he said. “I’m just having a good time playing with other people.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.