Reverend Gary Davis
Reverend Gary Davis also Blind Gary Davis ( April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972) was an African American blues and gospel singer as well as a renowned guitarist. Perhaps the best known exponent of the "gospel blues," his playing influence many of the rock and roll legends of the 1960s, fro the Grateful Dead to Bob Dylan.
Born in rural North Carolina, Davis was almost total blind from infancy. He taught himself guitar at an early age and soon became an active player in the Piedmont blues scene. He became a Baptist minister in 1933 and first recorded for the American Record Company (ARC) in 1935. Davis moved with his wife Annie Bell to New York in 1940, where he continued teaching guitar, working as a minister, and, beginning in 1945, recording on a fairly regular basis. His reached new levels of success during the folk revival of the 1960s, and his song "If I Had My Way" inspired a major hit by Peter, Paul, and Mary, under the title "Samson and Delilah."
Daivs' unique finger-picking style was influential on many subsequent artists and his students in New York City included Jorma Kaukonen (of Jefferson Airplane), Stefan Grossman, [and Dave Van Ronk. His musical influence, extends from the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan to Keb Mo, Olabelle and Resurrection Band. Few of his students claim to have mastered his style, however, which is highly complex, creative, and difficult to duplicate. As a singer and preacher, Davis left a legacy of hundreds of spiritual an gospel blues songs which have provided inspiration to millions.
Biography
Early life
Born in Laurens, South Carolina to John and Evelina Davis, Davis lost his sight at a very young age. Davis reported as an adult that his blindness result from a misapplication of chemicals applied to his eyes after birth. By the age of just three weeks he had almost completely lost the ability to see. However, he was able to distinguish light from darkness and discern shapes to a degree, but not recognize people with his eyes alone. One of eight children, he was raised on a farm in the Piedmont section of South Carolina,the home of particular style of blues playing also named Piedmont. His grandmother was his primary caregiver.
Gary became interested in music while still a small boy. At the age of seven, he reportedly build a guitar out of a pie pan and taught himself to play. In his teenage years he played at local dances and also sang in church. In the 1920s, he attended the Cedar Springs School for Blind People in Spartanburg, South Carolina and learned to read Braille. He also played in a local string band there.
He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multi-voice style, playing not only ragtime and blues tunes, but also traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony with a unique finger-picking guitar stylism. Around this time, Davis broke his left wrist from a fall suffered when he slipped. The wrist was set improperly, and did not heal correctly. Some observers believer this condition may account for his unusual chord patterns and manner of holding the neck of his guitar.
Davis married in the mid 1920s and traveled throughout the Carolinas and Tennessee playing and teaching guitar to make his living. By 1927 he had settled in Durham, North Carolina. While there, Davis collaborated with a number of other artists in the Piedmont blues scene including Blind Boy Fuller and Bull City Red. He also become more serious about religion, receiving his ordination as a minister in the Baptist church in 1933. He personally founded three churches in the Durham area during this time, but separated from his wife after learning of her alleged promiscuity. In 1935, a store manager named J. B. Long introdcued Davis to the American Record Company. The subsequent recording sessions marked the beginning of Davis' larger career. It was for the ARC that Davis made his first trip to New York City. There, he recorded 15 sides in the summer of 1935 Although he recorded some secular blues songs, Davis already expressed a preference for gospel music and spirituals, although his music was always characters with a definite blues influence. Davis would not record again until 1945.
In 1937, Davis married Annie Bell Wright. As the blues scene in Durham began to decline, the couple migrated to Mamaroneck, New York and soon moved to 169th Street in Harlem. Davis became a minister of the Missionary Baptist Connection Church in Harlem.
In 1945, he began to record once again as well as to teach guitar. His no longer played blues songs at all, consider the blues to be the "devil's music." However his songs continued to be performed in the "gospel blues" tradition, and many of his songs were not specifically religious, such as "Death Don't Have No Mercy," "Motherless Children," and others.
The folk music revival 1960s, boosted Davis' career significantly, although unlike many other bluesmen, Davis had continued recording during the late 40s and 50s. His unique guitar style found numerous enthusiastic adherents, such as David Van Ronk, Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder, Jorma Kaukonen and Stefan Grossman.Peter, Paul and Mary's version of his song "Samson & Delilah"—also known as "If I Had My Way"—further helped his record career. Davis became a regular feature at the lage folk festivals of the 1960s and a popular performer at major folk venues from New York to Los Angeles, also touring Europe.
In the late 60s Davis settled in Jamacia, Queens and began living a more retired life, performing locally in the New York and New Jersey but retiring from touring. He suffered a heart attack while on the way to a performance in New Jersey on May 5, 1972 and soon died. He is buried in Rockville Cemetary in Lynbrook, New York.
Musical style
"Fingerpicking" (also called "thumb picking", "alternating bass" or "pattern picking") is a term that is used to describe both a playing style and a genre of music. It falls under the "fingerstyle" heading because it is plucked by the fingers, but it is generally used to play a specific type of folk, country-jazz and/or blues music. In this technique, the thumb maintains a steady rhythm, usually playing "alternating bass" patterns on the lower three strings, while the index, or index and middle fingers pick out melody and fill-in notes on the high strings.
The style originated in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as Southern African American blues guitarists tried to imitate the popular ragtime piano music of the day, with the guitarist's thumb functioning as the pianist's left hand, and the other fingers functioning as the right hand. The first recorded examples were by players such as the Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Minnie and Mississippi John Hurt. Some early blues players such as Blind Willie Johnson and Tampa Red added slide guitar techniques. Fingerpicking was soon taken up by Country and Western artists such as Sam McGee, Ike Everly (father of The Everly Brothers) and Merle Travis. Later Chet Atkins further developed the style.
Most fingerpickers use acoustic guitars, but some, including Merle Travis often played on hollow-body electrics.
Legacy
Blind Gary Davis was a finger-picking guitarist who created a unique picking approach which has influenced performers such as Jerry Garcia, Stefan Grossman and Dave Van Ronk. Davis also excelled in sacred music to accompany his religious career and his religious works have been re-created by individuals such as the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan. Davis would put his sermons into musical segments and sing his sermons which became better remembered by the congregation than if they were spoken to. Davis' legacy was his ability to communicate his religious ideas within a popular musical form and to illustrate his guitar playing with a tremendous finger picking technique.
Discography
Many of the records were published posthumously.
- Little More Faith, Bluesville Records, Dec. 1961
- Blind Reverend Gary Davis, Bluesville, Oct. 1962
- Pure Religion, Command, July 1964, (re-released in 1970s by Prestige)
- Blind Reverend Gary Davis, (different album of same name), Prestige, May 1964
- Singing Reverend, Stimson, (with Sonny Terry)
- Guitar & Banjo, Prestige, 1970s
- Ragtime Guitar, Kicking Mule
- Lo I Be with You Always, Kicking Mule
- Children of Zion, Kicking Mule
- Let Us Get Together, Kicking Mule
- Lord I Wish I Could See, Biograph
- Reverend Gary Davis, Biograph
- Compilation CD in 1991: Pure Religion and Bad Company
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Coclanis, Peter A.; Bruchey, Stuart Weems, Ideas, ideologies and socail movements: the United States experience since 1800, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999. ISBN 1-570-03313-7
- Davis, Gary, Rev. Blind Gary Davis complete recorded works 1935-1949 in chronological order, Vienna, Austria: Document Records, 1991. OCLC 26636793
- David, Gary, The guitar evangelists, Vol 2, London: JSP Records, 2006. OCLC 71142712
- Terry, Sonny; Davis, Gary, Sonny Terry & his mouth harp [and] Blind Gary Davis, the singing reverend, Narbeth, PA: Collectables, 1995. OCLC 34427752
- Stambler, Irwin; Lyndon, Grelun, Folk and Blues, The Encyclopedia, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2001. OCLC 20865
External links
- RevGaryDavis.com, a site devoted to Gary Davis. Retrieved October 4, 2007.
- RoyBookBinder.com, Roy Book Binder's official site. Retrieved October 4, 2007.
- Davis biography on AllMusic.com Retrieved October 4, 2007.
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