Doc Watson, the blind...

...guitarist and folk singer, died at age 89. (I have to confess I'm not that familiar with Watson or his music; I'd never heard the song in the video above.) But I did enjoy this line from his obit in the Times: 

At the age of 5 or 6 he received his first harmonica as a Christmas gift, and at 11 his father made him a fretless banjo with a head made from the skin of a family cat that had just died.