Doc Watson - My Little Buckaroo

I was cleaning out the garage a few years ago, getting rid of old junk, when I stumbled across an old CD of lullabies. Daddies Sing Goodnight, which I used to play every night for the kids at bedtime.

There in the garage, surrounded by clutter and junk, I was suddenly back in a rocking chair with a sleepy little boy on my lap, listening to Doc Watson sing "My Little Buckaroo."

I saved that CD.

Doc Watson is one of the greatest "Flat Pickers" ever, despite going blind from an eye infection as a toddler. He picked up guitar young; he was good enough as a child that his father bought him a $12 guitar of his own - a lot of money for the 1930s North Carolina mountains.

My Little Buckaroo was my introduction to Doc Watson, and it was my favorite song on the lullaby CD. Looking back, I wonder if Doc sang it to his son, Merle - it was a popular song in the 1940s and 1950s, and was recorded by Roy Rogers and Eddie Arnold, among others.

I can't find a video of Doc singing My Little Buckaroo, so here's the instrumental of Black Mountain Rag:



My Little Buckaroo (Songwriters: M.K. Jerome, Jack Scoll)

Close your sleepy eyes, my little Buckaroo.
While the light of the western skies is shinin' down on you.
Don't you know it's time for bed, another day is through.
So go to sleep, my little Buckaroo.

Don't you realize, my little Buckaroo,
That it was from a little acorn that the oak tree grew?
And remember Buffalo Bill was once a kid like you.
So go to sleep, my little Buckaroo.