Reverend Gary Davis

Gary D. Davis (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), known as Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Gary Davis, was an American blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina, and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina, in the 1930s, then converted to Christianity and became a minister. After moving to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah" and "Death Don't Have No Mercy".

Davis' fingerpicking guitar style influenced many other artists. His students included Stefan Grossman, Rick Ruskin, David Bromberg, Steve Katz, Roy Book Binder, Larry Johnson, Alex Shoumatoff, Nick Katzman, Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Ernie Hawkins, Larry Campbell, Bob Weir, Woody Mann, and Tom Winslow. He also influenced Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Wizz Jones, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb' Mo', Ollabelle, Resurrection Band, and John Sebastian (of the Lovin' Spoonful).

Biography

Early years to 1942

Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina in the Piedmont region, He became blind as an infant. He recalled his grandmother telling him he got "sore eyes" when he was three-weeks old, and the doctors put something in his eyes that "cause[d] ulcers to grow" over the eyes and he ended up blind. His mother remarried and gave birth to a boy. He took up the guitar, first attempting to construct home made instruments, then acquired a cheap mail order instrument paid for by his mother on which he played any time he could, learning his first chords from a local musician named Craig Fowler. An even earlier home recording session also survives, comprising seven tracks recorded in 1951, and only recently discovered and made available as the Ellen Stekert tapes, now made available for listening via YouTube. Between these three informal recording sessions, Stekert and Cohen's recordings documented some 34 different items in Davis' repertoire of the time, including such subsequent well known pieces as "Civil War Parade", "I Am The True Vine", "Say No To The Devil", "Twelve Gates To The City" and "Twelve Sticks", but also renditions of several songs nowhere else recorded.

In 1954, a recording session was arranged for Davis for the New York-based Stinson Records by a young Kenneth S. Goldstein, then at the start of his career as a record producer, featuring Davis on guitar and vocals backed by Sonny Terry on harmonica, the result being released as a ten-inch LP entitled The Singing Reverend. According to Ian Zack, the record is marred by Terry's harmonica being recorded at too high a level while the level of the guitar is low, although on careful listening it is quite adequate as a representation of the two players, however in any case it failed to attract much attention. Meanwhile, between 1954 and 1957, Davis began to be featured, along with other blues artists, at a series of concerts under the name "Midnight Special". In a quote from future music writer Lawrence Cohn, Ian Zack states: "Brownie [McGhee], Sonny [Terry] and Gary all took turns... [while the others were playing], Gary would catnap. When it came to his turn, Brownie would give him a shot in the ribs, Gary would startle awake, proceed to knock the audience out with some incredible piece of music, then go back to sleep until it was his turn again", and that Davis must have been exhausted from his other two jobs, preaching and street singing, and having to wait his turn at midnight concerts that sometimes did not get going until 1 a.m. had to have been difficult.

Through the early 1960s Davis started to travel a little for bookings including in Boston, and while at home in New York would attend folk music gatherings at Washington Square on Sundays. In 1962, a then 16 year old Jewish kid Stefan Grossman sought out Davis for lessons, with Davis becoming "like a surrogate grandfather in a way" and Grossman in return absorbing everything Davis could show him, and sometimes spending eight hours at the Davises. In March 1966, Davis appeared (sharing the episode with Donovan and sitar playing singer Shawn Phillips) playing two numbers on Pete Seeger's long running Rainbow Quest television program, appearing in Episode 23 of the 39 made. Davis appeared to disconcert the show's host with his lengthy performances—"Children of Zion" and "Oh Glory, How Happy I Am", both on 12-string guitar—but the result forms a valuable audio visual document of Davis' performing style at this time. Four months later, Davis left for his third visit to the UK, this time as a solo artist, performing in folk clubs, now aged 70; over a three-week period he appeared in 13 different locations. although artistically it has been considered of less interest than his earlier output, additional royalties allowed them to purchase a second house in Newtonville, New Jersey, which they used as a weekend getaway.

In the liner notes to the Yazoo release Reverend Gary Davis 1935-1949 (mis-represented as "1935-1939" on the back cover), Stefan Grossman wrote: "Blues historians tend to classify the guitar style of Reverend Davis as an imitation of Blind Blake's. But this is quite absurd. Blake's technique was limited to his style of music. Davis uses a much more complicated approach to guitar playing which employs rhythmic and linear counter-point behind a sung musical statement. His instrumentals go beyond the ordinary "dance rag" and can depict a marching band, a battle, a broken car or the dreams of the devil. Reverend Davis has also perfected more than one style. He can play in the gentle style of John Hurt [...] or the more primitive bottleneck style or even double thumb frail banjo dance tunes or play carnival style banjo. But his major achievement is developing a guitar style that incorporated more than a syncopated bass or an alternating bass but used a variation of these played against a treble melody that was coupled with a middle registered harmony. ... Many times the thumb plays treble notes [editor's note: the converse of regular guitar playing] to give them the right accent ... He has developed "rolls" that double time the rhythm or accentuate the existing time signature. ... As with many other ragtime guitarists, Reverend Davis tends to favor the key of C. But for him each key has its own individual sound and there are pieces played in A, C, E. F and G on this disc. Davis has the uncanny ability of being able to play proficiently in any key. His most unusual arrangement conceptions are found in those songs placed in the key of F."

Presenting some examples of Davis' style as illustrated by specific songs, Ernie Hawkins initially states:

Filmed appearances

Davis scholars and enthusiasts are fortunate that he lived long enough to be filmed on a number of occasions, generally while in his prime as a performer. Stefan Grossman compiled a 105-minute set of all then known Davis film clips, released as SKU Vestapol 13111 Rev Gary Davis: The Video Collection, covering two tracks taken from the 1964 short film Blind Gary Davis that played in theatres in the early 1960s; two tunes broadcast on Rainbow Quest in 1966; eight tunes filmed for the Seattle Folklore Society in 1969 by the Anthropology Department, followed by another nine shot at a local television station on the same trip; plus two tunes filmed by Lionel Rogosin for his 1970 film Black Roots. Not included here, but available via other sources, are a brief clip from French television recorded in May 1964 when "the Blues & Gospel Caravan" was performing in Paris, and two tracks of better audio and video quality recorded at Newport in 1965 ("Death Don't Have No Mercy", "Twelve Gates to the City") included in the DVD documentary Harlem Street Singer (Acoustic Films, 2014). This documentary also includes some additional, fragmentary silent footage (with semi synchronized audio dubbed from other sources) filmed in Montreal, Canada, in January 1967, as well as informal footage of Davis at home providing advice and instruction for a student.

Discography

Many of Davis' recordings were published posthumously.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|- style="text-align:center; background:#f0f0f0;"

||Year

||Title

||Label

||Number

||Notes

|1954||Blind Gary Davis – The Singing Reverend||Stinson||SLP 56||First LP, recorded April 1954, with Sonny Terry, red vinyl

|1956||American Street Songs||Riverside||RP 12–611||Side A, Pink Anderson, Carolina Street Ballads; side B, Rev. Gary Davis, Harlem Street Spirituals, recorded January 29, 1956; also released as Gospel, Blues and Street Songs, Riverside RLP 12-148 (1961), Original Blues Classics OBC 524 and OBCCD 524–2

|1960||Harlem Street Singer||Bluesville||1015||Recorded August 24, 1960; also Original Blues Classics 547, Fontana 688-303-ZL (UK, 1965); renamed Pure Religion! and reissued as Prestige Folklore 14028 (1964) and Prestige 7805 (1972); remastered and reissued as OBCCD-547-2 (1992); reissued as Fantasy 24704

|rowspan="2"|1961||A Little More Faith||Bluesville||1032||Recorded August 10, 1961, at Van Gelder Studio, EngleWood Cliffs, NJ; also XTRA 5042 (UK, 1967), OBCCD-588-2; reissued as Fantasy 24704

|Say No to the Devil||Bluesville||1049||Also XTRA 5014 (UK, 1966) and OBCCD 519–2

|1963||Pure Religion and Bad Company||77 (UK)||LA 12/14||Recorded June 1957 in New York City; also Folklyric 125; reissued as Smithsonian Folkways SFW 40035 (1991) with 2 additional cuts

|rowspan="3"|1964||The Guitar & Banjo of Reverend Gary Davis||Prestige Folklore||14033||Instrumental tracks, recorded March 2, 1964, Van Gelder Studio; also Fantasy OBCCD 592–2; reissued as The Blues Guitar and Banjo of Reverend Gary Davis, Prestige 7725

|Rev. Gary Davis/Short Stuff Macon||Xtra (UK)||1009||

|Pure Religion!||Prestige Folklore||14028||Also Prestige 7805 (1972), reissue of Harlem Street Singer

|1967||Rev. Gary Davis at Newport||Vanguard||73008||Recorded 1965

|1968||Bring Your Money, Honey||Fontana (UK)||SFJL 914||Recorded Cambridge, Mass.

|1970||Reverend Gary Davis 1935–1949||Yazoo||L-1023||Also Yazoo CD 2011 (1994) as The Complete Early Recordings of Rev. Gary Davis and Document DOCD 5060 (UK, 2003) with 2 extra tracks

|rowspan="4"|1971||Ragtime Guitar||Transatlantic (UK)||TRA 244||Recorded 1960–1971; also Kicking Mule 106 (1974), Sonet SNKF 133 (1977) and Heritage HT 309 (UK, 1985)

|Children of Zion||Transatlantic (UK)||TRA 249||Recorded 1962, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.; also Kicking Mule 101 (1974), Sonet SNKF 152 (1978), Heritage HT 308 (UK, 1985); also on Blues & Ragtime, Shanachie 97024 (1993)

|The Legendary Reverend Gary Davis, New Blues and Gospel||Biograph||12030E||Also Blue Moon BMLP 1.040 ()

|The Legendary Reverend Gary Davis, Blues and Gospel, Vol 2||Biograph||12034E||Recorded March 17, 1971

|1972||When I Die I'll Live Again||Fantasy||24704||Reissue of Prestige/Bluesville 1015 and 1032

|rowspan="3"|1973||Lo I Be with You Always||Sonet (Sweden)||SNKD 1||Also Kicking Mule cassette tape (no number, 1984); reissued on Blues & Ragtime, Shanachie 97024 (1993)

|O, Glory – The Apostolic Studio Sessions||Adelphi||1008||Final studio album, recorded March 1969; reissued as Genes GCD 9908 (1996) with additional tracks

|At the Sign of the Sun||Heritage (UK)|| N/K ||1962, San Diego, Calif.; also HT CD 03 (UK, 1990)

|1974||Let Us Get Together||Sonet (Sweden)||SNKF 103||Also Kicking Mule cassette tape (no number, 1984)

|1976||Sun Is Going Down||Folkways||FS 3542||Recorded 1966

|rowspan="2"|1984||I Am a True Vine||Kicking Mule||no number||Cassette tape

|Babylon Is Falling||Kicking Mule||no number||Cassette tape

|1985||I Am a True Vine||Heritage (UK)||HT 307||Recorded 1962–63, New York City; also HT CD07 (UK, 1991)

|rowspan="3"|1988||Blind Gary Davis||Document (Austria)||DLP 521||Recorded live, spring 1966, at Al Matthes, Toronto

|Blind Gary Davis 1962–1964, Recorded Live||Wolf (Austria)||120,915||

|Blind Gary Davis at Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa., 1964—Afternoon Workshop||Document (Austria)||DLP 527||

|1989||Reverend Gary Davis||Heritage (UK)||CD 02||Reissue of Children of Zion and Ragtime Guitar

|1993||Rev. Gary Davis: Blues and Ragtime||Shanachie||97042||

|2002||The Sun of Our Life: Solos, Songs, a Sermon 1955–1957||World Arbiter||2005||Previously unissued session tapes and sermon from mid-1950s

|2003||If I Had My Way: Early Home Recordings||Folkways||SFW40123||Recorded 1953 by John Cohen

|rowspan="2"|2007||Lifting the Veil: The First Bluesmen (1926–1956), Rev. Gary Davis and Peers||World Arbiter||2008||Unissued session tapes from 1956 to 1957, recorded by Fred Gerlach and Tiny Robinson; liner notes quote a 1951 interview with Davis

|Reverend Gary Davis Live: Manchester Free Trade Hall 1964||Document (Austria)||DOCD-32-20-14||Recorded May 8, 1964, Manchester, England

|2009||Live at Gerde's Folk City, February 1962||Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop||SGGW 114/5/6||3-CD set

|rowspan="2"|2010||Reverend Gary Davis||Field Recorders Collective||FRC116||Recorded 1952, New York City, by John Cohen

|At Home And Church: 1962-1967||Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop||SGGW 130/1/2||3-CD set, recordings by Stefan Grossman

|2020||See What The Lord Has Done For Me||Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop||SGGW 161/2/3||3-CD set - rare and unissued recordings by Ernie Hawkins, 1968 and 1970

|2022||Let Us Get Together||Sunset Blvd Records||CDSBR7012||2-CD set. CD 1: Live in Portland, OR. CD 2: Live in Seattle, WA

Recognition

While he was alive, Davis' music was recognized by musicians of the era as exceptional. Bob Dylan called him "one of the wizards of modern music," while Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead said Davis had "a Bacchian sense of music which transcended any common notion of a bluesman." Jorma Kaukonen of the Jefferson Airplane suggested Davis is "one of the greatest figures of 20th-century music."

In 2002, Inside Sounds released a 20-track compilation Gary Davis Style (The Legacy Of Reverend Gary Davis) by a range of artists, a project described by the compiler as "started as an attempt to celebrate the centenary of Rev. Gary Davis's birth" which ended up comprising 20 tracks of which approximately half were previously released, and the remainder at that time previously unrecorded by the contributing artists.

References

External links

, a site devoted to Gary Davis.
Harlem Street Singer, 2013 documentary film on the life and music of Reverend Gary Davis
www.folkways.si.edu, Smithsonian Folkways recordings information.
[ Davis biography on AllMusic.com]
Biography of the Reverend Gary Davis from the Association of Cultural Equity
The guitar students of Rev. Gary Davis with links to performances
The Rev. Gary Davis performing on WNYC Radio, February 10, 1966.
Liner notes from World Arbiter CD 2005
Instructional DVDs by Ernie Hawkins including:
The Gospel Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis (4 DVDs)
Blues Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis (2 DVDs)
Ragtime Guitar of Rev. Gary Davis
Rags and Minstrel Show Songs of Rev. Gary Davis
Novelty Instrumentals of Rev. Gary Davis (featuring Soldiers March (United States March), Darktown Strutters Ball and Whistlin' Blues)