Holten Doucette is a flatpicker and mandolin player from Waller, Texas. In 2022 he won both the National Flatpicking Championship and the National Mandolin Championship at Winfield, Kansas, on the same weekend. Winfield’s records show him in the top three seven times between 2016 and 2022.
Why Doucette matters
Winning two Winfield championships in one year is rare. Doucette did it at the festival’s 50th anniversary. He got there the slow way, with five top-three finishes on mandolin and guitar before the double win. For a jammer, he is a model of a player who treats the two instruments as one language: the same fiddle tunes, the same clean attack, on both.
Life and career
Doucette grew up in Waller, Texas, northwest of Houston, and was home schooled. He started mandolin and flatpick guitar at age 11. He plays in The Doucettes, a bluegrass gospel band with two brothers and a sister. The band released a CD called He’s My King. Hudsen Doucette, also of Waller, won the Winfield bluegrass banjo championship in 2018.
Doucette first placed at Winfield in 2016, with second in the mandolin contest at age 17. He took third on mandolin in 2017 and again in 2019. The festival skipped 2020. In 2021 he placed second on mandolin and third on flatpick guitar. In 2022 he won both contests. His prizes were a Preston Thompson D-SMA Custom guitar and a Collings MT A-style mandolin.
Playing style
Doucette plays with a firm, even right hand on both instruments. In his videos he favors traditional material: East Tennessee Blues and Big Mon on mandolin, and the gospel song He Looked Beyond My Faults on guitar. The melody sits out front and the timing stays steady, which fits the Winfield judging sheet, where arrangement and execution make up 80 of 100 points.
His prize instruments include a Collings MF5 Custom mandolin (2016), a Clark F5 mandolin (2017), an Eastman MD615 mandolin (2019), a Martin D-28 guitar (2021), and the 2022 Thompson guitar and Collings mandolin.
Influences and legacy
Doucette came up in a family band. Around him at Winfield were Jason Shaw, who won the guitar contest in 2021 when Doucette took third, and Ian Ly, who placed third to Doucette in 2022 and won the next year. Ben Cockman placed third on mandolin the year Doucette won.
Signature tunes and songs
East Tennessee Blues Big Mon He Looked Beyond My Faults.
Essential recordings
He’s My King, The Doucettes
Awards and honors
National Flatpicking Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, first place (2022) National Flatpicking Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, third place (2021) National Mandolin Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, first place (2022) National Mandolin Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, second place (2016, 2021) National Mandolin Championship, Walnut Valley Festival, third place (2017, 2019)
Watch and listen
Doucette plays East Tennessee Blues on the Clark F5 mandolin he won at Winfield in 2017. Listen to how steady the tremolo and the downstrokes stay.
Here he plays the gospel song He Looked Beyond My Faults on a Collings OM1T guitar. Watch how he carries a vocal melody with a flatpick.
What to learn from Doucette
Learn East Tennessee Blues and work it up on guitar and mandolin if you play both. The technique to steal is his cross-instrument habit. Take one fiddle tune you know on guitar and learn it note for note on mandolin, or the other way around. The tune will get cleaner on both, because you have to hear the melody instead of the fingering.
Sources
Winners archive, alphabetical, Walnut Valley Festival Holten Doucette, Pickers Paradise Contest winners at the 50th annual Walnut Valley Festival, Bluegrass Today National Flat-Picking Championships Winfield competition winners for 2021, Bluegrass Today Walnut Valley Championships 2019 Winfield winners, Bluegrass Today 2016 winners at Walnut Valley Festival, Bluegrass Today Contest rules, Walnut Valley Festival
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Ian Ly placed third to Doucette in 2022 and won in 2023. Jason Shaw won in 2021 when Doucette took third. Carl Miner (2025) and Bryan McDowell (2009) also won the Winfield guitar and mandolin contests in the same year.