American singer and guitarist
Gary D. Davis (April 30, 1896 – May 5, 1972), known as Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Gary Davis, was a 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, 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.
Davis was born in Laurens, South Carolina in the Piedmont region, on a farm that was, by his recollection, "way down in the sticks; so far you couldn't hear a train whistle blow unless it was on a cloudy day."
Of the eight children his mother bore, he was one of two who survived to adulthood. He became blind as an infant. He'd recall 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.
He recalled being poorly treated by his mother and that his father placed him in the care of his paternal grandmother. Davis reported that when he was 10 years old, his father was killed in Birmingham, Alabama. He later said he'd been told his father was shot by the Birmingham sheriff. His mother re-married and gave birth to a boy.
He sang for the first time at Gray Court's Baptist church in South Carolina. He took to the guitar and assumed a unique multi-voice style produced solely with his thumb and index finger, playing gospel, ragtime, and blues tunes along with traditional and original tunes in four-part harmony.
In the mid-1920s, Davis moved to Durham, North Carolina, a major center of black culture at the time. There he taught Blind Boy Fuller and collaborated with a number of other artists in the Piedmont blues scene, including Bull City Red. In 1935, J. B. Long, a store manager with a reputation for supporting local artists, introduced Davis, Fuller, and Red to the American Record Company. The recording sessions (available on his "Complete Early Recordings") marked the beginning of Davis's career. He became a Christian, and ordained as a Baptist minister in Washington, North Carolina, in 1933. Following his conversion and after his ordination, Davis began to prefer inspirational gospel music.
In the 1940s, the blues scene in Durham began to decline, and Davis moved to New York. In 1951, he recorded an oral history for the folklorist Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold (the wife of Alan Lomax). who transcribed their conversations in a typescript more than 300 pages long.
The folk revival of the 1960s invigorated Davis's career, and he performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Eleven songs from those performances were released on the 1967 album "At Newport". In March 1969, Davis' former student and driver, John Townley, who had since established Apostolic Recording Studio, persuaded Davis to his first recording studio session in five years. The resulting album, "O, Glory – The Apostolic Studio Sessions" would be Davis' final studio album, released posthumously in 1973.
Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Davis' version of "Samson and Delilah", also known as "If I Had My Way", a song by Blind Willie Johnson, which Davis had popularized. Although the song was in the public domain, it was copyrighted as having been written by Gary Davis at the time of the recording by Peter, Paul and Mary. The resulting royalties allowed Davis to buy a house and live comfortably for the rest of his life, and Davis referred to the house as "the house that Peter, Paul and Mary built." The Grateful Dead covered "Samson and Delilah" on their album "Terrapin Station" and credited it to Davis. They covered Davis' song "Death Don't Have No Mercy". Eric Von Schmidt credited Davis with three-quarters of Schmidt's "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", which Bob Dylan covered on his debut album for Columbia Records. The Blues Hall of Fame singer and harmonica player Darrell Mansfield has recorded several of Davis's songs. The Rolling Stones credited Davis and Mississippi Fred McDowell for "You Gotta Move" on their 1971 album "Sticky Fingers".
Davis died of a heart attack in May 1972 in Hammonton, New Jersey. He is buried in plot 68 of Rockville Cemetery in Lynbrook, New York.
Discography.
Many of Davis' recordings were published posthumously.
Personal life.
In 1937, Davis married Annie Bell Wright, who was as religious and spiritual as Davis, and in 1944, they moved to Mamaroneck, New York, where Annie worked as a housekeeper. Later that year they moved to the East Bronx on 169th street. He became a minister of the Missionary Baptist Connection Church and acquired the nickname "Harlem Street Singer." They moved to Jamaica, Queens in 1968.
On May 5, 1972, while on the way to a concert in Newtonville, New Jersey, he had a heart attack and died. He is buried at the Rockville Cemetery in Lynbrook, New York. His widow, Annie Bell Wright-Davis, died in 1997.
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."
He was posthumously recognized alongside Blind Boy Fuller as Main Honorees by the Sesquicentennial Honors Commission at the Durham 150 Closing Ceremony in Durham, North Carolina, on November 2, 2019. The recognition was bestowed for their contributions to the Piedmont blues.
References.
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